The current situation in France is making me very conflicted about privacy and public liberties.<p>I am a strong believer of the value of privacy for a modern society. I even want to dedicate my life to help building privacy enhancing technologies and censorship-resistant networks. Because I think that an &quot;advanced&quot; world can only thrive if information is unrestricted, or unstoppable.<p>But today I face a dilemma. The dilemma of choosing between freedom and privacy, and security.<p>I am French, and have a lot of family in Paris. My brother lives two streets from the Bataclan and lost one of his friends. Some of my friends lost 5, sometimes 10 people that night. Imagine loosing two thirds of your group of friends in a few hours. This is frightening.<p>When I look at France. I see a great country, with a lot of humanity and when I look at the French, I see a freedom loving people who share a love for good food, good music and generally speaking, the good things that life has to offer.<p>But I also see the failure of my country in the suburbs. With entire neighborhoods that have been left uncontrolled by the government at some point, and who never went back to that state despite lots of efforts. These neighborhoods are rigged with crime and violence, and have been a fertile environment for religious lunatics to grow stronger for the last twenty years.<p>And I have mixed feelings. The French National Assembly has extended the state of urgency to three months. Strengthening the regalian power of the state and weakening the counter-balancing power of the Judicial branch.<p>Hundreds of raids have been coordinated through France, most being in those &quot;uncontrolled areas&quot;. And it seems to work.<p>Which prompt me to think that this might be for the better. For the most part of my &quot;short&quot; life, I have thought that a people should never &quot;trade freedom for security&quot;. But I have come to the, perhaps wrong, conclusion that there can&#x27;t be &quot;freedom without security&quot; either.<p>Maybe we should give up some freedom to let the &quot;good guys&quot; crackdown hard on the &quot;bad guys&quot;.<p>But maybe it isn&#x27;t. Maybe fear is clouding my judgement.