2023-07-06 00:35:17
Associations saw it as “a serious breach of privacy”. The National Assembly on Wednesday approved the possibility of remotely activating mobile phones to listen to and film people targeted in organized crime and terrorism investigations. The deputies validated by 80 votes against 24 this key article of the programming bill for justice, at first reading since Monday at the Palais-Bourbon. The elected representatives of the presidential camp, of LR and of the RN voted in favor. Those of Nupes voted against, like the president of the Liot group, Bertrand Pancher.
The article allows the remote activation of mobile phones, computers and other connected objects in two distinct cases. The first device authorizes geolocation to follow in real time the movements of persons targeted in the context of an investigation for a crime or misdemeanor punishable by at least 5 years of imprisonment. The Senate wanted to limit this measure to crimes and misdemeanors punishable by 10 years of imprisonment, but the Assembly returned to the version of the government.
The second part allows remote sound and image capture of people targeted this time in cases of terrorism as well as delinquency and organized crime. The capture only concerns “dozens of cases per year”, insists Éric Dupond-Moretti.
The left is upwind against these provisions “of intrusion into private life”, LFI evoking an “authoritarian drift” and recalling the criticisms of lawyers or NGOs.
An amendment by the deputy of the presidential camp Naïma Moutchou (Horizons) specifies that the recording must be put in place “when the nature and seriousness of the facts justify it” and “for a duration strictly proportionate” to the objective. Isolated in the presidential camp, Mireille Clapot (Renaissance relative) felt that there was a “disproportion” between the goal sought and these measures, an “eye that would watch us”.
Extension of night searches
But for the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, “there are people whose lives we will save”: “We are far from the totalitarianism of +1984 +”, the novel by George Orwell. The presidential camp emphasizes the “guarantees” provided. The capture would be reserved for the “most serious” cases and authorized for 15 days renewable once by the judge of freedoms and detention, and two months renewable by an examining magistrate up to a maximum duration of six months.
Éric Dupond-Moretti compares it to the “old technique” of microphones or cameras placed in suspects’ homes. Another argument: the remote triggering of connected devices is already used by “intelligence services”, without the authorization of the judge, who will be essential here. As for geolocation, it “already exists” with beacons and the demarcation of telephones, for crimes and misdemeanors punishable by at least three years of imprisonment, insists the minister. But the “thugs” remove the beacons and their installation is “dangerous” for the investigator, he continues.
In committee, the deputies had reinforced “safeguards” with more professions “protected” from these investigative techniques: doctors and journalists in addition to lawyers, magistrates and parliamentarians. Amendments from the left tried in vain to specify that journalists without press cards should also be protected, the minister deeming the precision superfluous.
VIDEO. The Senate approves the remote activation of the cameras or microphones of the telephones
The LFI group, opposed to the measure as such, however had bailiffs and notaries removed from the “protected” professions by amendment, considering that there was no valid reason for them to be so, and not the rest of the population.
In this vast article 3 of the text are also provided for the extension of the use of night searches and the possibility of using a teleconsultation for a medical examination during an extension of police custody. MPs from several opposition groups tried unsuccessfully to remove the possibility for a judge, under certain conditions, to place under house arrest with electronic monitoring a person who was released from pre-trial detention due to an error of procedure.
Today, only placement under judicial supervision is possible. “It’s an additional modality,” defended the minister. “Because of the lack of means of justice, would there be more errors (of procedures) which make you propose to cover irregularities by making them regular? “, replied the communist deputy Elsa Faucillon.
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