“This decision, based on fallacious grounds, demonstrates the lack of will on the part of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office to shed light on the practices of the French intelligence services. Such a position, in light of the public contestation of the intelligence bill passed by the parliament on May 5th, is unacceptable,” declared Patrick Baudouin, lawyer and Honorary President of FIDH.
“It is time for the French authorities to face their responsibilities. One cannot admit, as the President of the Republic recently did in an interview, that such practices existed previously, outside any legal framework, and at the same time allow the Prosecutor’s office refuse to investigate,” declared Michel Tubiana, lawyer and Honorary President of LDH.
According to reports published in the press in 2013, French intelligence services collected massive amounts of data, without the legal authority to do so.
The complaint lodged by FIDH and LDH on 26 December 2014 denounced the intelligence services’ fraudulent access to a computerised system, collection of personal data by fraudulent means, deliberate violation of privacy, and storage of recordings and documents obtained through the violation of privacy.
FIDH and LDH also took legal action in France against the NSA and the FBI and their surveillance practices via the PRISM programme. Our organisations first lodged a complaint in July 2013, then, in view of the lack of action on the part of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, a complaint as a civil party in April 2015, in hopes of shedding light on these practices that violate individual freedoms.