Four EU countries oppose SWIFT bank data deal with US ahead of Lisbon Treaty

Opposition from four member states to a draft agreement between the EU and US allowing the use of banking data in anti-terrorist investigations is likely to delay a decision until after 1 December, drawing the European Parliament into the decision making process. Citing data privacy concerns, Germany, Austria, France and Finland are opposing the text [...]

Israel and France conclude cooperation agreement on the fight against terrorism

Read more about it here.

French study has privacy concerns over intelligence interceptions

A detailed study by Claudine Guerrier, teacher and researcher at Telecom and Management School of Paris-South, finds out that France authorizes approximately 20.000 judicial wiretaps each year: 30% deal with phone conversations, 70% with exchanges of information on the internet. But the author also indicates that in 2008 for instance there were also 5906 ‘administrative’ [...]

French ministry of interior presents controversial LOPPSI 2 draft law on internal security, focus on new technologies

After a year and a half of discussions, Minister of Interior Michèle Alliot-Marie finally presented the draft law for the “programming and performance of internal security” (Loppsi) to the Council of Ministers on the 27th of May.
In 2002 the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin proposed LOPS (Law of Orientation and Programming for Internal Security), which [...]

France and Spain set up joint body to fight terrorism

(AFP) – France and Spain signed a deal Tuesday to set up a joint security committee to fight terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal immigration, the two countries announced following a bilateral summit.The heads of the security services of both countries will meet every six months to plan joint actions in the fight against terrorism and [...]

France symbolically accepts one Guantanamo detainee

According to reports, the detainee that would be taken in by France could be of Algerian origin.Sarkozy made the announcement ahead of this weekend’s NATO summit.It was not immediately clear whether other Guantanamo inmates could eventually be sent to France. France has been reticent about welcoming Guantanamo inmates because of security concerns and wants to [...]

Paris Appeals Court Acquits Five Former Guantanamo Bay Detainees

A Paris appeals court on Tuesday overturned the terrorism convictions of five former detainees at Guantanamo Bay, ruling French police agents were out of line in questioning them at the U.S. prison camp. The Paris appeals court had earlier ruled that agents from the French counterterrorism agency DST who questioned the five inmates at Guantanamo [...]

French appeals court overturns terrorism convictions of five former Guantanamo detainees

Georgetown SLB reports that a Paris appeals court overturned terror convictions of five former Guantanamo detainees, ruling that French intelligence officials improperly questioned them while they were in US custody.  The Court held that the French counterintelligence agency DST could not be both a spy agency and a judicial police service — the body that [...]

How France counters terrorism

Article in the Boston Globe:

The French authorities also have powers of surveillance and communications intercepts that would make even Dick Cheney blush.
The sharpest tool in the French antiterrorist arsenal is a law, unique in the French legal system, that makes “an intention to commit a crime a crime itself,” an official explained. It sounds a [...]

French Court convicts Ganczarski for his complicity in a 2002 suicide attack on a synagogue in Tunisia

French justice officials said the case and its outcome were a timely reminder to Washington that international cooperation to combat terrorism can succeed without recourse to phantom prisons, extra-legal trials, or morally questionable extraordinary renditions.
“It’s gratifying to see the French legal system can both enhance security and render justice to victims by prosecuting terror cases [...]