Number of the day: 89,502 preventive surveillance measures

Among the tedious publications that the French state releases every year to offer a semblance of democratic veneer is the annual report of the Commission Nationale de Contrôle des Techniques de Renseignement (CNCTR), the body created in 2015 to monitor the proper use of spying measures deployed by these agencies. The release of its 2022 Annual Report on June 15 may have passed somewhat unnoticed, but it’s still worth extracting a few bits of information. All the more so since the report details the official array of surveillance measures carried out on their own initiative, upstream and as a preventive measure, by all the intelligence agencies, leaving us to imagine how this expansion can then be translated into additional prolonged surveillance in a judicial rather than administrative framework (in the form of opening a preliminary investigation or inquiry, which the person who is targeted will not immediately be aware of).

To begin with, let us remind you of the list of agencies concerned by the following figures, which are the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure (DGSI), the Direction du Renseignement et de la Sécurité de la Défense (DRSD), the Direction du Renseignement Militaire (DRM), the Direction nationale du Renseignement et des Enquêtes douanières (DNRED) and the Unité de Traitement du Renseignement et Action contre les Circuits financiers clandestins (Tracfin), plus the so-called second-circle agencies, namely the Direction du Renseignement de la Préfecture de Police de Paris (DRPP) ; the Service central du Renseignement territorial (SCRT, ex-RG), the Sous-Direction de l’Anticipation opérationnelle (SDAO) and the Service national du Renseignement pénitentiaire (SNRP). It should also be pointed out that these figures are, of course, the tip of the iceberg, i.e. those recorded within the “legal” framework of supervision by the CNCTR, and not the raw reality in all its complexity, which is obviously greater.

Seriously undermining public peace

To begin with, it should come as no surprise that the number of people officially monitored annually by the intelligence services is not dropping, having risen from 22,038 in 2018 to 22,958 in 2021, with a margin of error that the CNCTR nonetheless evaluates at “less than 10%”, since this is actually its little retrospective tallying of accounts, given that “requests for the implementation of intelligence techniques are presented by technique and not by person”. In short, what’s a little more notable than the overall number is the steady rise in people under preventive surveillance not just for “terrorism” (30%), “major foreign policy interests” and counter-espionage (20%) or “organized crime” (25%), but for a category that’s been on the rise since the Yellow Vests movement and the agitation around ecology and climate, namely the “prevention of attacks on the republican form of institutions… and collective violence likely to seriously undermine public peace” (12%).

It’s this last point, for example, that has provoked a few falsely indignant headlines in the press, such as “Intelligence: the rise of requests on political activism worries the commission” (Ouest France, 16/6), or “Intelligence: the rise in spying on political and union circles alarms the CNCTR” (Huffington Post, 15/6). But what exactly are we talking about?

Recordings of privately spoken words, etc.

In concrete terms, these twenty thousand or so people, whose numbers are officially more or less constant, have been the subject of almost 89,500 surveillance measures, representing an increase of +22% between 2018 and 2022, which means an intensification of the pressure put on each of the individuals targeted.

And when we look at the CNCTR’s boring tables in detail, the most spectacular leaps in terms of techniques employed over this period are “Access to connection data in real time” (+ 322%), “Geolocation in real time” (+ 110%), “Connection data collection by IMSI catcher” (+ 135%), but also spying techniques that don’t just concern electronic leashes that are worn voluntarily. These include “Location of persons or objects (beaconing)” (+29%), “Entry into private places” (+17%), “Capture of images in a private place” (+81% from 2021 to 2022) or “Capture of private or confidential speech” (+61%), the latter generally concerning both enclosed places (home, premises, vehicles), but also the theft of conversations outdoors (bars, restaurants, parks, walks, etc.). And also the remote activation of microphones and cameras on cell phones or any other networked device, even when switched off, which is an old eavesdropping technique that Parliament is in the process of legalizing outside the intelligence services, this time for prosecutors and examining magistrates, as part of the Justice Law (article 3) currently being voted on.

So let’s be clear about our responsibilities: when we knowingly introduce a networked device equipped with a microphone and/or camera (cell phone, baby monitor, computer, car GPS, networked watch, etc.), even when switched off, close to a conversation where “private or confidential words are spoken” and must remain that way, we ourselves become a potential state informer…

The case of “surveillance of violent extremism”

Finally, we note that the CNCTR has appended to its 2022 Report two practical case studies designed to promote its usefulness in the face of the insatiable greed of intelligence services, one of which concerns the case of “surveillance of violent extremists”. Here is the first paragraph, which has the particular merit of highlighting the criteria proposed daily by the intelligence services to justify the implementation of the surveillance techniques listed above: “Taken in isolation, membership of a movement or small group calling for the overthrow of institutions, participation in protest demonstrations, open hostility to republican values and the French state, or the establishment of “experimental” forms of community are not in themselves sufficient to justify the use of intelligence techniques for this purpose. In these different cases, the CNCTR considered that, despite the radical nature of the discourse possibly advocated by the target, there was too great a gap between the latter’s capacity for action and the reality of the threat of overthrowing the institutions.” (p.80)

On the other hand, in the same case study on “violent extremism”, the CNCTR boasts of its benevolence towards the services with regard to the admissibility of the ground of “undermining public peace”, which concerns not only the question of physical violence or intimidation, but in particular “the prevention of harm to the country’s economic life, in the form of sabotage or violent intrusions into industrial facilities”. This brings us to another rather explicit paragraph on the subject: “The commission distinguishes between graffiti on a building and serious damage, the seriousness of which shows the determination of the perpetrator and the risk of an escalation in violence… Damage to property may also justify surveillance when the person has participated [according to the services] in damage that has caused particularly significant economic, social and financial harm and compromises the normal exercise of a legal activity (destruction of machinery, large-scale sabotage, etc.).” (p.86)

The 18 buffoons of the State

To conclude this succinct and certainly pointless note, other than as a reminder, let’s add that the refusals pronounced by the CNCTR on spying requests from services amounted to a staggering… 1% in 2022 (i.e. 974 out of 89,502), bearing in mind that its opinion is in any case merely consultative! So, when a request emanating from a Ministry of the Interior office is submitted to Matignon (more precisely, to the Groupement interministériel de contrôle, GIC), it is actually this department attached to the Prime Minister that is responsible for giving its authorization, albeit after “hearing” the 99% favorable opinion issued by the CNCTR.

And the best part is that widely-used techniques such as IMSI catcher interception of connection data or remote acquisition of computer data are not centralized within the GIC/CNCTR (only classic “eavesdropping” is), and are directly self-managed without quota by the servers of the DGSI and DGSE. This gives a slightly more realistic idea of the role of the 18 members of this precautionary-commission for the buffoons, and above all of the far greater number of individuals who receive the preventive attention of the State on a daily basis, outside of judicial investigations.

You’ve been warned…

Some enemies of the brave new world
June 25, 2023

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via: sansnom

Translated by Act for freedom now!