Intelligence Reform and the Snowden Paradox: The Case of France

Félix Tréguer
Additional contact information
Félix Tréguer: Center for International Studies and Research, Sciences Po, France

Media and Communication, 2017, vol. 5, issue 1, 17-28

Abstract: Taking France as a case study, this article reflects on the ongoing legalisation strategies pursued by liberal states as they seek to secure and expand the Internet surveillance programs of their domestic and foreign intelligence agencies. Following the path to legalisation prior and after the Snowden disclosures of 2013, the article shows how post-Snowden controversies helped mobilise advocacy groups against the extra judicial surveillance of Internet communications, a policy area which had hitherto been overlooked by French human rights groups. It also points to the dilemma that post-Snowden contention created for governments. On the one hand, the disclosures helped document the growing gap between the existing legal framework and actual surveillance practices, exposing them to litigation and thereby reinforcing the rationale for legalisation. On the other hand, they made such a legislative reform politically risky and unpredictable. In France, policy-makers navigated these constraints through a cautious mix of silence, denials, and securitisation. After the Paris attacks of January 2015 and a hasty deliberation in Parliament, the Intelligence Act was passed, making it the most extensive piece of legislation ever adopted in France to regulate secret state surveillance. The article concludes by pointing to the paradoxical effect of post-Snowden contention: French law now provides for clear rules authorising large-scale surveillance, to a degree of detail that was hard to imagine just a few years ago.

Keywords: contentious politics; intelligence; internet; securitisation; Snowden; surveillance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/821 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v5:y:2017:i:1:p:17-28

DOI: 10.17645/mac.v5i1.821

Access Statistics for this article

Media and Communication is currently edited by Raquel Silva

More articles in Media and Communication from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().