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French Suit: NSA Spying a 'Foreign Attack' on Civil Liberties

Human rights groups file a suit against the mass violation of French civil liberties

As the NSA spying scandal ripples across the world, French human rights organizations announced Thursday they are taking legal action against US spying that they say violated civil liberties and left no French citizen safe.

Common Dreams

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Human Rights League jointly filed a suit Thursday demanding the French government investigate not only NSA's Prism surveillance program, but also the cyber companies--including Facebook, Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Skype--that were party to the unlawful snooping.

An FIDH lawyer declared the spying an unprecedented and "massive attack on individual liberties by a foreign state, because it potentially concerns every French citizen and internet user," the Guardianreports.

A FIDH statement declares that the very basis of French civil liberties are at stake.

This blatant intrusion into individuals' lives represents a serious threat to individual liberties and, if not stopped, may lead to the end of the rule of law.

Outrage in France continues to grow after whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed an NSA spying program that monitors email and phone data across the world, in violation of countless national privacy laws, including on French soil.

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