[IP] France Announces Massive Internet Surveillance by ISPs

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: sheath@gmail.com [sheath@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Steven Heath [sheath@foxbane.co.nz]
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 9:36 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] France Announces Massive Internet Surveillance by ISPs

I have heavily 'snipped' from the post from Lauren Weinstein. I am not
addressing his concerns about the proposed laws around ISPs in France.
I am commenting on his analogies or references that I think are so
flawed that it strikes at the key parts of the post.

> Greetings.  In a breathtaking act of arrogance reminiscent of the
> heyday of Louis XVI

I would have thought Louis XIV 'Sun King' would be the correct comparison.

> To streamline the process, the entire procedure, as I understand it
> right now, would operate -- at least initially -- on an
> extrajudicial basis, without the messy intervention of courts,
> judges, trials, or other post-Magna Carta niceties that might help
> to assure that only the truly guilty are punished.

Magna Carta as in settlement of the barons and the English King John?

> It's one thing to use the conventional legal system to enforce
> legitimate intellectual property rights, but it's something wholly
> different to deputize ISPs into Network Monitors, feeding data to
> what apparently could easily become a Star Chamber operating outside
> the normal bounds of the conventional legal system.

Now the reference to the Star Chamber, yet another English 'invention'.

The Magna Carta, Star Chamber and the entire English Common Law legal
approach is either only applies as a concept or NOT at all. France
uses, as many other countries do a Civil Law legal system and not
Common Law.

While these points could be deemed minor they are used in a very
emotive manner. Thus as soon as I read them I decided that Lauren's
message was lost in the rather pointless errors that he himself
decided to use.

If the comparison was on the centralising of power or absolutism under
Louis XIV and the power held by Cardinal Richelieu and then Cardinal
Mazarin then it would actually be related to the county he is railing
on about. Not only that but  think near perfect alignment to the focus
of his post, the control of the state outside of the existing laws and
system.

If one is going to talk about the laws and events in another country
one should at least use examples that are from that country, and not
its 'arch enemy' for hundreds of years.

--
Steven Heath
Director
Foxbane Consulting
DDI: +64 4 978-7306
Cell: +64 21 706-067

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