The French intelligence act : resonances with the USA patriot act

Pierre-Antoine Chardel (1, 2, 3) , Robert Harvey (4) , Hélène Volat (4)

1 IMT-BS - LSH - Département Langues et Sciences Humaines
2 ETHOS - Ethique, Technologies, Humains, Organisations, Société
3 LASCO - Laboratoire Sens et Compréhension du Monde Contemporain
4 SBU - Stony Brook University [SUNY]

This paper is a study in political philosophy. In the wake of the January 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the French parliament adopted an Intelligence Act. Some considered the Act, passed in May and June of the same year, balanced, justified, and necessary. Others rejected it as an ill-conceived erosion of freedom. Does this Act blatantly undermine the democratic balance between the need for security and the demand for civil rights and liberties? The public might have expected the French Intelligence Act of 2015 to give rise to a serious, frank, and open debate about the means for combating terrorism without imposing measures that appear detrimental to citizen privacy. Instead, on July 23, just months after the terrorist attacks, the Constitutional Council, which François Hollande, the President of the Republic, had asked to convene about the constitutionality of this law, delivered its verdict: the Intelligence Act in no way violates the principles of the Republic. Some compare the situation in France to that in the United States in 2001, when a set of emergency laws under the acronym USA PATRIOT Act were hastily promulgated several weeks after the criminal attacks of September 11, 2001. Is the Intelligence Act in France essentially a French Patriot Act?

Domaines: Science politique; Philosophie

Pierre-Antoine Chardel, Robert Harvey, Hélène Volat. The French intelligence act : resonances with the USA patriot act. Technology science, 2016. ⟨hal-02375889⟩