Surveillance bill clears a hurdle

France’s Constitutional Council has ruled that a bill legalizing broad surveillance of terrorism suspects doesn’t violate the country’s constitution. The decision was the final step before the law can take effect.

The bill was proposed long before the January attacks in Paris by Islamic extremists, but officials say that added to its urgency.

One measure will force communications and Internet firms to allow intelligence services to install electronic “lock-boxes” to record metadata from all Internet users in France for algorithmic analysis to detect potentially suspicious behavior.

The data will be anonymous, but agents could follow up with a request to an independent panel for deeper surveillance that could identify users.