Can intelligence agencies and their practice of secret state surveillance be reconciled with the rule of law? Is the unprecedented global debate on surveillance opened by the Snowden disclosures in 2013 bringing intelligence work closer to democratic standards? On October 26 2016, the French Constitutional Council indirectly dealt with these pressing questions by striking down a blank-check provision in the 2015 Intelligence Act. The provision – article L. 811-5 of the Code of Internal Security – immunised “the surveillance and control of Hertzian transmissions” from traditional safeguards attached to secret state surveillance, like the authorisation of the Prime Minister and the ex ante opinion of an oversight commission.