Orange shares all its call data with France's intelligence agency, according to new Snowden leak

[bemildred]

Another day, another round of troubling surveillance news. In a twist, though, today's nugget has less to do with the US or the NSA but rather, France's central intelligence agency, the DGSE. According to a leak by Edward Snowden to the French paper Le Monde, Orange, the country's leading telecom, has been willingly sharing all of its call data with the agency. And according to the leaked document -- originally belonging to the UK intelligence agency GCHQ -- the French government's records don't just include metadata, but all the information Orange has on file. As you might expect, the DGSE then shares this information with other countries, including, of course, the UK, which had this incriminating document in the first place.

In a way, this isn't surprising: the French government owns a 27 percent stake in the company. But until now, Orange has ostensibly been operating as a private firm. What's more, the leaked document would suggest that the DGSE's relationship with Orange has been cooperative, with Orange employees creating new tools to collect and interpret the data. If true, then, this arrangement would go beyond the DGSE merely requesting specific cell phone records and getting them. For now, both the French government and the DGSE have declined to comment, according to TechCrunch, while Orange CEO Stéphane Richard told LeMonde that he isn't aware of what the DGSE is doing, but that Orange has granted access to the DGSE to comply with the law.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/20/orange-shares-all-its-call-data-with-frances-intelligence-agency/

[MADem]

1. Some French official said, some time ago, that the only thing that was surprising is that anyone was

"shocked" by this sort of thing.

And we're all aware of this, which isn't breaking news by any stretch...this is from NOV 2 of last year:

The news was revealed as part of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s latest leaks and was reported by The Guardian. According to the report, Germany, France, Spain, and Sweden have been engaging in mass wiretapping of Internet communications and telephone calls over the past five years and have been passing that information to the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

According to the report, the countries have created a “loose but growing eavesdropping alliance,” and that the information is retrieved through “direct taps into fiber optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies.”

The timing of the leaks are particularly comical: Last week, after news that the NSA spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone, the Chancellor said in a statement that she “views such practices … as completely unacceptable,” adding that she deserved “an immediate and comprehensive explanation” from the U.S. government. Spanish and French leaders have also expressed concern about NSA spying, but recent reports suggest that those governments were complicit in the surveillance.

We already knew the French were getting all the data, and sharing it too--does it really matter in the big scheme of things how they get it?

I don't think this will produce the gasps and shouts of "Quelle horreur!" that might be anticipated. It's old news in a new suit of clothes.