French Official Presents Anti-Terror BillAssociated Press | October 26 2005 PARIS (AP) - France's interior minister presented a long-awaited anti-terrorism bill to the Cabinet on Wednesday, rejecting allegations that it would trample on civil liberties. The bill would stiffen prison sentences for convicted terrorists, allow police to monitor citizens who travel to countries known for terror training camps and broaden the use of surveillance cameras. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has led the effort to boost France's legal arsenal against terrorism, responding to July bombings in London. He rejected claims that his proposed measures will create a police state. ``My job is to ensure the safety of people,'' he told reporters following the Cabinet meeting. The government aims to get the bill, drawn up by the interior and justice ministries, through parliament before the end of the year. President Jacques Chirac's conservatives control both houses. ``The terrorist risk is real,'' Chirac told the Cabinet meeting. The bill gives France ``new instruments with which to act,'' the French leader added, according to a government spokesman. The independent French Data Protection Authority, which vetted an early version of the bill, expressed concerns about some provisions and demanded ``guarantees'' for civil liberties over the use of cameras and access to citizens' personal data. France has some of Europe's toughest anti-terrorism laws, enacted after attacks here in the 1980s and 1990s. But officials want to fill perceived gaps laid bare by the London attacks on July 7 that killed 56 people - including four suicide bombers - and improve prevention. ``At the time when the terrorist threat is weighing on France, the national interest requires better ensuring the right to safety, with respect for freedoms,'' said a summary of the bill's 15 articles. The proposed law would grant counterterrorism officials greater access to airline passenger lists as well as drivers' licenses, passports and identity card information - now inaccessible to them under the law. Authorities would also step up use of surveillance cameras in train stations, subways and airports across the country and allow large shops, synagogues and individuals who could be terror targets to expand the use of private surveillance cameras. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Sarkozy have said that France needs better video surveillance capacities in public areas, drawing on Britain's success in capturing bomb suspects based on closed-circuit footage. Another provision would require Internet cafes to retain more detailed information. Telephone operators would be required to keep records for at least a year to help investigators track suspected terror networks. The bill would adapt an existing 1991 law on tapping phone calls, in the light of new technology such as text messaging and the Internet. It also would extend the maximum prison sentence for the most common charge used in terrorism cases - ``criminal association with a terrorist enterprise'' - from 20 years to 30 for leaders of terror plots designed to harm people. Members of terror plots could be imprisoned up to 20 years, up from the current 10. Authorities could strip French nationality from naturalized citizens who commit terrorism, acts that endanger the national interest or acts ``incompatible with the quality of being French.'' The rationale for that, the summary said, was to combat the ``implantation strategy'' developed by terror networks that know their members cannot be banned from France once citizenship is acquired Last modified October 26, 2005 |