U.S., French Patriot Acts meet different ends.

• Position: PRIVACY

In early May, as U.S. lawmakers were preparing to narrow the scope of the USA Patriot Act in light of opposition to the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance made public in recent years, French lawmakers were passing their own legislation to expand state surveillance.

France's National Assembly passed legislation that grants the state sweeping surveillance rights, despite loud opposition from civil rights groups, which have reportedly dubbed it the French Patriot Act. It is one of several government reforms introduced following the terrorist attacks in Paris in January.

According to news channel France 24, the country is still on high alert and has received repeated threats from jihadist groups, including the Islamic State (IS) group in the Syria-Iraq region. It is also struggling "to keep up with the hundreds of French citizens who travel to and from battlefields in Iraq and Syria to wage jihad, often lured over the Internet," reported the New York Times.

The new law would give French intelligence services the right to gather potentially unlimited electronic data on such suspected terrorists. It would allow them to tap cellphones, read e-mails, and force Internet providers to allow government access to their subscribers' communications. In other words, it would allow them to collect bulk information and analyze metadata in much the same way the NSA did--the very thing U.S. lawmakers...