There’s been some posts about Graphene leaving france and accusing the government of targeting them.
This isn’t happening. What happened is that le parisien posted an article that presents what french law enforcement think of grapheneOS, which is obviously mostly crap, then present part of graphene’s respone, which does in fact include their references to human rights organizations, large tech companies and others using GrapheneOS, unlike what grapheneOS claims. The main flaw with the article is the fact that the author takes what the french law enforcement says at face value, which is not a good move.
If you haven’t been following this you may be wondering how this was extrapolated into the government targeting them. Well, it’s because government owned news sites also reported on this. This is because le parisien’s article got regurgitated by a bunch of other news sites looking for an easy article to get ad revenue from, normal news site behavior. The government news sites are fully editorially independent from the government, which the GrapheneOS lead should know, since that’s how the canadian CBC works.
For chat control, that measure isn’t supported by the majority of french meps, just the (massively unpopular) head of state and his minority government. No similar law has been passed nationally, in fact, a law that guarantees privacy rights is making it’s way through the legislature (tuta article). If chat control passes, it affects several of the countries (germany and belgium, afaik) they moved to as well, anyways.
Graphene’s announcement also disparages the other two big privacy roms, both based in france, which is odd and makes me personally think this may have more to do with the visible hatred the project lead has for those projects.
Please tell me what you think, and if I missed anything important, because it really seems like a big nothing-burger to me.
I wouldn’t say it’s nothing, because they definitely are trying to weaken or break privacy and encryption, but it also isn’t exactly an ongoing targeted campaign.
France was also leading the charge in the shutdown of those other encrypted phone services. They claimed that those were only used by criminals but never provided any evidence. They also broke multiple laws during their investigation. So yes the french government definitely is dirty in this regard and deserves calling out.
They specified it was a media campaign influenced by law enforcement. They may have referenced law enforcement going after them but they meant through a propaganda campaign and they said the measures they’re taking are entirely preventative. They aren’t interested in fooling around with a government that just got caught trying to assassinate an African leader. Perspective. They always start with a propaganda campaign to label their targets criminals or terrorists. I’d say Graphene’s response during an incredibly dark era of history is definitely called for. Its no longer 2014. Its 2025 with fascist coups taking place all over and digital security is one of their main targets. I strongly disagree with the OP and I’ve been keeping up with entire saga on Graphene’s social media and interacting with them about it.
Yeah, but the they is law enforcement, not the government.
I’m pretty sure law enforcement is an arm of the government…
Law enforcement doesn’t make the law, they just enforce it. When you say “the government” you imply the legislature is part of what you’re talking about.
Outside of states with a parliamentary system, “state” and “government” are synonyms. In states with a presidential system, the police are an arm of the executive branch, which is an arm of the state/government.
Then what do you call the body consisting of the legislature, executive, and judiciary? Because I’m pretty sure that law enforcement is accountable to someone.
You don’t.
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The point I’m making is that law enforcement trying to break into encrypted phones, and news orgs coverting that isn’t “the government targeting them”. There is a distinction between “the government” and law enforcement.
How so?
The police’s job is to enforce the laws that be, and be bound by them. The legislature, in france’s case, the assemblée nationale and sénat, write the laws. As an example, french law enforcement can’t force signal to break their encryption, but the legislature could.