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Breaking News
posted by n1 on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:00AM   Printer-friendly

France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders after at least 40 people were killed in multiple shootings in Paris.

At least 15 people were killed near the Bataclan arts centre, where up to 60 people are being held hostage. Explosions and gunfire are reported.

Three people were killed in an attack near the Stade de France, with some reports suggesting a suicide blast.

Paris authorities have urged people to stay indoors.

Military personnel are being deployed across Paris.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/13/455943961/violence-reported-in-paris
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/world/paris-shooting/index.html

Update #1 [BBC updates]:

Scores of people have been killed in multiple gun and bomb attacks in Paris

At least 100 people are reported to have died inside the Bataclan concert hall in central Paris

Others died in attacks near the Stade de France, where France were playing Germany, and at restaurants

France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders

Paris residents have been asked to stay indoors and military personnel are being deployed across the city

[...] Reuters. quoting an un-named official at Paris City Hall, says the current death toll in Paris is around 140.

Update #2:

According to the Paris prosecutor, of the four assailants who died during the sidge at the Bataclan, three committed suicide by detonating explosive vests. The prosecutor has warned that some of their accomplices may "still be on the loose".

[...] Here is what French president François Hollande told reporters outside the Bataclan concert hall just now: "To all those who have seen these awful things, I want to say we are going to lead a war which will be pitiless. Because when terrorists are capable of committing such atrocities they must be certain that they are facing a determined France, a united France, a France that is together and does not let itself be moved, even if today we express infinite sorrow."


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:32AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:32AM (#262962)

    Given the money and resources our intelligence agencies are spending on spying on everyone, the first question should be "why didn't you know about this attack?"

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  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:56AM

    by tftp (806) on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:56AM (#262974) Homepage

    It would be nearly impossible to do if the lone organizer, or a few, did all the planning ahead of time, and issued instructions to the soldiers just before the attack. Islamists are fully aware of the spying, and they have learned years ago how to stay under the radar. It's not rocket science - it's actually going back to basics: meeting in person in crowded public places, transferring small notes from hand to hand, and other such craft that many associate only with spies. Person to person communication is very hard to intercept; it is even hard to detect.

    So what would the NSA hear in their intercepts? I would guess, nothing of importance. They wouldn't even know when they accidentally stumbled upon some nefarious conversation, as speaking in code *and* in a foreign language is not conducive to clear understanding. For example, verses from a Holy Book belong to numbered chapters. Concatenated, those numbers can produce date and time and code of the location. How on Earth would anyone figure it out if the speaker simply talks about subject of those chapters, freely interleaving it with meaningless chaff? Verbal steganography is not weaker than the one that is recorded.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:00AM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:00AM (#263036) Journal

      That's fine, but the question remains. If the NSA and CIA purport to stop this very kind of thing with all their incredible disregard for our Constitutional Rights and the Rule of Law they demonstrate with their total surveillance, then they fail to stop this very sort of thing, then what good are they? What it proves is that they have shredded the bedrock of American law for nothing. They took all our freedom away and provided no security.

      These terrorists in France are despicable, and I am tempted to nuke everything ISIS controls into glass, but frankly I am not worried about the threat they constitute to my safety or freedom. I am very worried about the threat that the American police state poses to my every waking moment and those of everyone in my family.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday November 14 2015, @11:36AM

        by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Saturday November 14 2015, @11:36AM (#263183)

        If the NSA and CIA purport to stop this very kind of thing with all their incredible disregard for our Constitutional Rights and the Rule of Law they demonstrate with their total surveillance, then they fail to stop this very sort of thing, then what good are they?

        Even if they did provide security, our fundamental liberties and constitution are more important. I would rather live in a country that is more free but less safe and less stable than some authoritarian country.

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:27PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:27PM (#263196) Journal

          Me too, but stuff like this rather destroys their main justification, doesn't it? Everytime people like us object to what they're doing, they claim it's keeping us safe. Paris proves unequivocally that's bullshit.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:49PM

            by Whoever (4524) on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:49PM (#263422) Journal

            Everytime people like us object to what they're doing, they claim it's keeping us safe. Paris proves unequivocally that's bullshit.

            If only things were so simple. Yes, to rational people who have been following the issues, this is clear evidence of the failure of mass surveillance and other erosion of individual rights. However, many people don't think things through, they don't realize that continuing to do what already failed will again not work the next time (just like it did not work with the Charlie Hebdo attack).

            The security services will continue to claim that they prevented several other plots, with absolutely no proof of this (because "security").

            In fact, there is a strong incentive on the security services to allow a small plot to go ahead (Charlie Hebdo, perhaps) now and again, just to keep the population from questioning their purpose.

    • (Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:20AM

      by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:20AM (#263076) Journal

      I'm with Phoenix here. What is the fucking point in the complete internet dragnet if it can be so easily defeated? What is the fucking point in backdooring or outlawing (otherwise effective) crypto? Shut down the NSA, shut down the Department of [Fatherland] Security, and greatly restrict the powers of the CIA. They are clearly ineffectual against these methods.

      Either that or they are complicit. Look for news in the next few days about reactions from Clinton and Jeb. Look for news discrediting Bernie Sanders, that his policies would lead to more of this. Look for the FEAR! AAAaaaaaa! FEAR! (Expect some insane posturing from Trump, but well, he's Trump. We love him like we love Ethanol, sorry to razz you buddy. Trump might be crazy, but at least he's our crazy.)

      No, I'm not just drawing on Star Citizen fandom, as two of my previous posts would suggest. I'm merely illustrating a parallel, a parallel that's played out throughout human history to the point of being a plot device in a game I'm looking forward to. That's the point I'm trying to make. The Powers That Be, the Masters of the Universe, whatever you want to call them, have never been above sacrificing the blood of the innocent to further their goals.

      I never wish to disrespect the dead. I sing Xena's funeral dirge for them and shed some tears. These tears burn, however, because I know there is a reason this attack happened or at least was allowed to happen, and I know what this means for the Coronation of Clinton and TPP, TTIP, and TISA. I also shed tears knowing how easily the public, the European public, the American public, will trade liberty for the promise, a promise they can never deliver upon because this is not a safe world, of security.

      To paraphrase a post I modded up, with regards to fear of refugees and the calls for closing borders:

      You've fucking done it. They told you not to, but you fucking did it anyway.

      You forgot 9/11.

      • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:18PM

        by fritsd (4586) on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:18PM (#263222) Journal

        Bob Altemeyer, the Authoritarians, page 56:

        Thus it turns out in experiments that a person's fear of a dangerous world
        predicts various kinds of authoritarian aggression better than any other unpleasant
        feeling I have looked at. As my mentor, Brewster Smith of the University of
        California at Santa Cruz, said when I told him that fear set off authoritarian aggression
        more than anything else, "We do have to fear fear itself." And of course fear rose in
        the United States after 9/11. As Dave Barry put it in a column in November 2004,
        "Attorney General John Ashcroft has issued one of those vague, yet at the same time,
        unhelpful federal terrorism warnings that boil down to: "Be afraid! Be very afraid!""

                      Events like the attacks of 9/11 can drive large parts of a population to being as
        frightened as authoritarian followers are day after day. In calm, peaceful times as well
        as in genuinely dangerous ones, high RWAs feel threatened. They have agreed on the
        RWA scale, year after year since the 1970s, that sinfulness has brought us to the point
        of ruin. There's always a national crisis looming ahead. All times are troubled times
        that require drastic action.