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Comment by GrumpyBen | Hacker News Reader

The police found more than 300 illegal weapons during their searches. People that were put under house arrests have a file on them because of their links with terrorists or terrorist organizations. I don't feel the government is abusing the state of emergency, I just feel they should have done all this before the attacks.

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Hey people, I have a file on GrumpyBen, can someone please lock him up as he is deemed a threat to public safety?

Joking aside, if activists committed any crime, you follow the legal procedures and challenge them in a court of law before a judge and let the defendants present their case in a free trial and see if any of the charges you brought against them sticks, otherwise shut up and leave them alone because if you start allowing police to hand out sentences without legal recourse to challenge these arbitrary punishments, you'll descend slowly into a police state and horrific society to live within.

I don't find your "joke" very funny at all, in the aftermath of almost 200 terrorist deaths (in the west) in November alone. GrumpyBen's prescription is not fun and anti-liberty, but so is living in a society being preyed upon by violent groups within it.

I don't find your comment constructive at all.

First, it wasn't a joke. Second, we were discussing putting environment activists under arbitrary house arrest not terrorists or terrorism. Your anger at the tragic death should be directed at the terrorists or the security apparatus which failed miserably to protect people in the "west" and not at me or the activists.

Try next time to read the comments first before jumping into the discussion.

your silly faux-incitement "joking" (your words) strikes the wrong tone in this literally deadly-serious subject matter, and if it potentially offends sensibilities then I'm sorry, but pointing that out to you can be constructive.

I agree with you and that's actually the case here. If these activists think their house arrest is unfair, they can complain to an administrative judge that will look into their case.

No, it should be the other way around.

You have to get a verdict first in order to detain them and not let them do the job for you and make them go through hardships for a redress and emergency laws are not just or fair to entertain them .

This is temporary, the country is in "state of emergency", that gives the government and the police special powers to reestablish order. I think that was justified after the attacks but I would oppose it if the government wants to extend it past 3 months.

But the police is taking advantage and using these powers to detain people that otherwise they don't have the right to detain, such as env activists.

> terrorist organizations

Like those pesky ecologists that endanger the state by stopping economic growth and slowing down job creation at the cost of increased pollution, right?

They're not ecologists, they're anti-globalization anarchists that protested against a new airport by destroying shops in downtown Nantes. They recently threw at the police candles that people left at the memorial for the Paris attacks. I consider myself an ecologist but I have no sympathy for these people.

Can you read French? https://wiki.laquadrature.net/%C3%89tat_urgence/Recensement#...

People who commit crimes should be fined or arrested. These are preventive house arrests for crimes that they might commit in the future. You really don't see the problem with this?

They also banned alcohol sales at night in some places for the same simple reason: the police has better things to do right now than dealing with drunk people or anarchists

So much for "liberté"... which precisely seems to be what gotchange was talking about.

You didn't respond to the question.

They are known violent protestors. I don't care much about the freedom of "environmentalists" that protest against capitalism by burning down stores. Especially while the country is in state of emergency.

And yet, they're still not ISIS terrorists. The state of emergency was used to stop public discourse and dissent - both anarchists and non-anarchists were banned from attending marches during the Paris climate summit.

The police had to protect the COP21 and the visit from more than 150 head of states. They also have to protect administrations, newspaper offices, jewish organizations and others potential terrorist targets. There's just not enough police forces to handle all this, plus marches and anarchist protests

Not having proper resources isn't a reason to infringe upon the freedoms of the people. If the police can't handle their work, then they should just ignore less important crimes and focus their efforts on the stuff that matters. Otherwise the French government could use a lack of resources as an excuse to silence whoever they want. With a justification like that, they could make arrests for thought-crime.

Who's more of a threat to the public - random candle-throwing anarchists, or the heads of state of the biggest and most militarised and industrialised nations in the world?

Terrorists are terrorists regardless of affiliation. ISIS doesn't have organized operations in the west it just takes credit for lone acts.

By and large its not clear ISIS actually wants people to commit terror attacks in the west since it gets potentially useful recruits killed not fighting for territory in the middle East (note they are big on how you should definitely move to the ISIS territories).

anarchists =/= terrorists

A mere file? In the US, when a suspected terrorist is held by US state security and they are not a US citizen, every non-citizen in their social graph (family, friends, even known acquaintances) who aren't already being held are deported immediately.

I've never heard of this. Does this policy have a name I could read up on?

I learned about it reading a long article about the Boston Marathon Bombing in the New Yorker a couple of months after the incident occurred. It shocked me, but when the reporter asked the INS/ICE offices about it they said it was "standard procedure".

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