Tony
Blair's enthusiasm for introducing ID
cards, while no doubt motivated in part by naturally authoritarian
instincts, should be seen in the wider context of the drive to create a single
EU criminal justice system. This aim forms a major component of the proposed EU
constitution. The
European Commission has been funding at a cost of 180 million euros, through
its Information Society Technologies Programme, 65 different bodies working for a
common ID card. As long ago as April 2000 the member states collectively
signed up to the eEurope Smart Cards Charter and in October 2001 EU police
chiefs said that "the EU should speed up the universal adoption of ID
cards". Last July, at an
e-government conference organised by the Italian presidency of the EU, Andrew
Pinder of the
Re:
confidential police databases. A
spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "We are looking at documentation suggesting
agencies obtained personal information through a corrupt police source
and then passed information to various media organisations. We have contacted
a number of people we wish to speak to in connection with this investigation,
but we are not prepared to disclose names or the organisations." The
spokesman said that four men had answered police bail last Thursday, "having
been previously arrested by our anti-corruption command as part of a
continuing investigation into passing police information to private investigation
agencies". The four were bailed again, to return on February 4. One
of the men is a 38-year-old police civilian staff member in Wandsworth, south
The
Government is reviewing guidance on the operation of the Data Protection Act
because of growing concern that it could be putting lives at risk.
The Soham murders and the recent deaths of a couple who had their gas cut off
have highlighted restrictions imposed by the legislation on the passing on of
vital information. It was revealed last week that Humberside police had deleted
computer records about alleged sex offences involving Ian Huntley because they
believed they were complying with the terms of the Act. British Gas recently
argued that the Act stopped it informing social services that an elderly couple,
who were later found dead in their home, had been cut off. A
chemist was beaten unconscious by a thug who he recognised. He looked in his
records and gave the name and address to the police. He was reprimanded for
contravening the data protection laws. The Data Protection Act (DPA) was
introduced in 1998 and came into force on
The government has proposals
in the pipeline which will severely restrict access to birth and marriage certificates
relating to people born within the past 100 years. Basically you
won't be able to purchase the certificates unless you have a proven connection
to a person named on the certificate (but for most family historians/genealogists,
that is why they want to purchase the certificate - to prove the
connection, which is why this is such a bad piece of legislation from our
point of view). The legislation is an attempt to combat "identity theft",
whereby criminals use the certificates to falsely assume another identity.
It follows from the EU anti-money laundering directives and the EU data
protection directives. (Private e-mail on www.archivecdbooks.org
mailing list,
The
European Union's Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) shelved a report on anti-Semitism after it found that Muslims
and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents. The
group has previously issued reports on anti-Islamism but has come under strong
pressure to change its findings on anti-Semitism. The report found that young
Muslims, particularly immigrants from the
A
PAN-EUROPEAN database of prostitutes is being compiled
to help track their movements before the expansion of the European Union floods
the continent with sex workers from eastern Europe. The database is being drawn
up by the Czech authorities but will be gradually expanded to include other
countries. Within just 10 days Czech police have gathered the details of
thousands of prostitutes in what they hope will become the world’s largest
file on the sex industry. Last week police rounded up thousands of sex workers
from more than 450 brothels in the
It
is David Blunkett’s proposal to introduce identity
cards for everyone over the age of 16, at a cost of £39 each.Each of the
claims made by the Home Secretary in support of his pet scheme is wrong.Any
doubts as to the wisdom of the scheme must surely be removed by his final
argument in its favour: that “we are
out of kilter with Europe.” (Daily Telegraph
In future police will be authorized to require anyone in the Netherlands older than 12 to show proof of his or her identity. Failure to do so can result in a prison sentence of up to two months or a fine of up to 2,250 Euro. (Statewatch 12/2/03)
The European Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, has called on the Council to give a French student access to its legal opinion on openness. When the postgraduate student requested the Council's opinion on the Commission proposal for access to documents last January, he was met with the "surprising" response that the document was secret. While the student has claimed that this infringes the fundamental principle of giving the public the widest possible access to documents, the Council argues that disclosure of legal opinions would undermine its ability to obtain independent legal advice. An advisor to the Ombudsman explained that the Council believes all legal opinions are exempt under the new regulation on access to documents. Mr Söderman has urged the Parliament to support the student's case. The Ombudsman believes that opinions on draft legislation should normally become available to the public when the legislative process has reached its conclusion. (EUOBSERVER 12/2/03)
The Government's proposed national identity ("entitlement") card appears to favour a system including biometric identifiers (perhaps iris scans) together with comprehensive data-matching arrangements so your 'entitlement card' information is available across many local and national government bureaucracies. There will be a legal requirement to produce the card in a wide variety of circumstances. It will be required to open a bank account, obtain health care, secure employment or receive benefits. (Privacy International 11/12/02 )
The Council of Europe has adopted a measure that would criminalize Internet hate speech, including hyperlinks to pages that contain offensive content. Specifically, the amendment bans "any written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as pretext for any of these factors." It also obliquely refers to the Holocaust, outlawing sites that deny, minimize, approve or justify crimes against humanity, particularly those that occurred during World War II. Many European countries have existing laws outlawing Internet racism, which is generally protected as free speech in the United States. The council cited a report finding that 2,500 out of 4,000 racist sites were created in the United States. Critics say that the measure may push hate groups to set up virtual shop in the United States, pointing to a decision last year by a U.S. judge who ruled that Yahoo did not have to block French citizens' access to online sales of Nazi memorabilia, which are illegal in that country. The judge determined that U.S. websites are only subject to American law. European countries may decide to censor U.S. content themselves, as Spain has done, suggested Carlos Snchez Almeida, a cybercrime lawyer located in Barcelona. Spain recently passed legislation authorizing judges to shut down Spanish sites and block access to U.S. Web pages that don't comply with national laws. Representatives of the 44 European countries on the European Council must decide whether to adopt or reject the measure during the next Parliamentary Assembly session in January. Countries who support the amendment will then need to ratify it in their national legislatures before making it law. (Source not known Nov. 09, 2002)
The British predilection for twitching net curtains has evolved into a world-beating enthusiasm for snooping, Britain is "leading the charge" to spy on individuals in the wake of September 11. The claim - blamed on the government's "pathological" aversion to protecting individual rights at the expense of police powers - comes from Privacy International and the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. But Britain stands out for the "staggering" speed with which it has sacrificed traditional rights to anonymity and free speech, Privacy International claims. Legal protections have been "fundamentally weakened" by the government, with the data protection act "almost useless" in curbing the rise in snooping, the report states. New laws allow the authorities secretly to tap the content of e-mails and mobile phone calls and track the websites visited by internet surfers, without the need - prescribed in most other countries - for a judicial warrant. Telecommunications companies and internet service providers with more then 10,000 customers are required by an order that came into effect on August 1 to have the "practical capability" to intercept e-mails and online traffic within one working day of a demand by the state. And the Home Office is seeking industry agreement to a voluntary code requiring e-mail and internet addresses to be held for a year so the police and other authorities can trawl back through online data. The anti-terrorist measure that gives the legal backing needed for this code is already on the statute books, far in advance of tentative European Union measures on data retention. Britain's speed in this regard is typical, privacy campaigners say. "The UK [government] demonstrates a pathology of antagonism toward privacy," says Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. Mr Davies attributes this apparent British willingness to be spied on to a fundamental shift in attitudes during the past decade. "One of the defining cultural factors of Britain 10 years ago was a degree of anarchy - the culture of the individual. That has changed. Now it's [the New Labour mantra of] 'rights and responsibilities': the expectation that people will toe the line." The home office says the new laws are designed principally to regulate online snooping, rather than facilitate it. But human rights lobbyists say the state is exploiting the post-September 11 climate to persuade people to sacrifice their privacy unnecessarily. "The government has shown an alarming appetite for acquiring personal data and intruding on people's lives without clear good reason or adequate controls," says John Wadham, director of Liberty. (Financial Times; Sep 05, 2002)
Surveillance of communications EU: data retention to be "compulsory" for 12-24 months - - Even as the European Parliament was discussing and voting on fundamental changes to the 1997 EC Directive on privacy in telecommunications the Belgian government was drafting (and circulating for comment) a binding Framework Decision on the retention of telecoms traffic data and access for the law enforcement agencies - a copy of which has been leaked to Statewatch. Under the guise of tackling "terrorism" the EU's Justice and Home Affairs Minister decided on 20 September 2001 that the law enforcement agencies needed to have access to all traffic data (phone-calls, mobile calls, e-mails, faxes and internet usage) for the purpose of criminal investigations in general. One of the arguments used to legitimise the move during the discussions in the European Parliament was that the change to the 1997 Directive simply enabled governments to adopt laws for data retention if national parliaments agreed. The document leaked to Statewatch shows that EU governments always intended to introduce an EC law to bind all member states to adopt data retention. The draft Framework Decision says that data should be retained for 12 to 24 months in order for law enforcement agencies to have access to it. In theory the agencies will still need a judicial order to trawl back through the records of a targeted person(s) - though this legal nicety has never stopped the internal security agencies getting access in many countries. The Framework Decision also carries a strong hint that another measure is in the pipeline, one to allow law enforcement agencies access to the content as well as the traffic data of communications. Now the traffic data of the whole population of the EU (and the countries joining) is to be held on record. It is a move from targeted to potentially universal surveillance. Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments: The right to privacy in our communications - e-mails, phone-calls, faxes and mobile phones - was a hard-won right which has now been taken away. Under the guise of fighting "terrorism" everyone's communications are to be placed under surveillance. Gone too under the draft Framework Decision are basic rights of data protection, proper rules of procedure, scrutiny by supervisory bodies and judical review" Statewatch's analysis shows that there are "grave gaps in civil liberties protection": - - there are no grounds for refusing to execute a request on human rights grounds - - there are no limits as to what data can be exchanged where member states allow for the retention of data on all crimes, not just the 32 listed - - there is no reference to supervisory authorities on data protection - - there is no reference to the individual's right to correct, delete, block data nor compensation for misuse or for related judicial review - - no reference to controls on the copying of data - - no rules for checking on the admissibility of data searches (Statewatch 20/8/02 )
The latest news is that the EU is to have its own security service, possibly with Border Police. (In the Soviet Union, the Border Police were run by the KGB). This new set-up, well-funded and international, is called DG 1X. When you mention it, EU diplomats go strangely tight-lipped. And the funding basis is interesting. It does not appear on the EU's budget because it is separately funded by the member-states -- to the tune, currently, of £33 million. (R Helmer MEP newsletter 3/6/02)
The EU arrest warrant for the crime of "xenophobia", to be pushed through Parliament by Blair this autumn, is intended to make sure that there is no trial by jury in Britain of anyone accused of libelling or spreading "false information" about foreign governments (including the EU's institutions and policies). It will be used in a way like the Nazis used the German presidential decree of 4 February, 1933, which authorized the prohibition of newspapers or public meetings that "abused, or treated with contempt, organs, bureaux, institutions or leading officials of the state" or disseminated "false information" that "might endanger the interests of the state", and the emergency decree of 28 February 1933, which eliminated all personal freedoms, with no provision guaranteeing a prompt hearing, appeal or redress for false arrest. Article 52 of the so-called EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is in fact also like the Nazi decree: it states that all personal and political freedoms can be restricted if "made necessary by objectives of general interest pursued by the Union". The EU is, or will be, an evil dictatorship. Even if one took he view that the present set of EU politicians and bureaucrats are not all totalitarian thugs (just as not all individual Nazi administrators were thugs) the structure of totalitarian repression is in place. (Letter to press by Bernard Connolly 9 Mar 2002)
The European Union countries are set to pool resources to set up an intelligence services office to give the EU an intelligence arm to complement its budding defence capabilities to help fight terrorism. Europe’s foreign affairs chief Javier Solana will head EU’s first intelligence services, which would gather staff from national intelligence services across EU. The plans are set to be endorsed by the EU leaders when they gather in the Spanish city Seville, in June. (EUobserver.com 04-03-2002) Laundering funds offshore is alleged to be done through the Charlemaine Group of companies – Ed
Laws being introduced by the Government would give it the power to see academic papers before they are published and suppress them. It could also prevent the use of e-mails between foreign colleagues. The Export Control Bill, being steered through the Lords by the Department of Trade and Industry, could also mean foreign students working in British laboratories would need "licences". The Bill, a revision of the 1939 Export Control Act, will include powers that put software, e-mail and even speech under official control. "This has serious implications for academic freedom," said Dr Ross Anderson, of the security research group at Cambridge University. Dr Anderson, an expert in cryptographic systems, went on: "The DTI is trying to extend the scope of the Export Control Bill to interfere with all the nooks and crannies of science and technology. They like the idea of being able to exercise a pre-publication review – which they've never been able to do in the past. If you submit a patent, it could be suppressed for defence reasons but scientific papers never had that." The areas covered could change all the time. In the House of Lords, Baroness Hendon argued that the Secretary of State would have a "continuous power" to make fresh orders that could add to or detract from the type of goods governed by the legislation. That would let the minister change the reason software or even e-mail would require a licence – and what subjects were proscribed from communication. Peter Cotgreave, director of the pressure group Save British Science, said: "It's all very well saying they won't use these powers themselves but they are creating these powers, and who knows who will be in charge a few years down the line?" The DTI said European regulations that recently became law already controlled the export outside the European Union of "dual-use" items and ideas, which could have civil or military uses. The new laws would be used principally to cover military uses and the export of any objects or concepts that could be used for nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. But Dr Anderson noted important implications for universities. "Teaching medicine to a foreign national would appear to require a licence – many of the core curriculum subjects, such as bacteriology, virology, toxicology, biochemistry and pharmacology are central to a chemical and biological weapons programme. Other problematic subjects include not just nuclear physics and chemistry but aerodynamics, flight control systems, navigation systems, and even computational fluid dynamics." Dr Anderson said he had been told by the DTI that the e-mails he swapped with scientists in Norway and Israel in the late 1990s, when they were developing a cryptographic technique for a competition, would be subject to licensing under the revised Act.. The Bill is a piece of "primary legislation" that creates a legal framework; and is made enforceable through "secondary legislation" that specifies the objects covered by the new law. (Independent 18 February 2002)
Under the Animal Health Act government officials have the right to enter any property and kill any animals present. If the owner protests then the officials can obtain a court order at a hearing at which the subject has no right to be heard or represented. (BBC Farming Programme 6/1/02) (NB this law is ostensibly of UK origin but nothing happens in agriculture without EU permission - Ed)
A Swedish citizen, Per Johansson, has been expelled from Belgian and can no longer travel in 14 European countries after pasting up an anti EU poster at a Belgian police station. The Belgian police in Brussels arrested the Swede, who is an active member of a legal Swedish left wing party, just three days before the Laeken summit. The police expelled the man for only one reason: he had been helping friends putting up the poster, announcing an anti-EU meeting. Mr Johansson was not only expelled from Belgium, but will also not be able to travel in Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Island, Norway, Finland and Denmark – all members of the Schengen agreement. His order has no date of expiration. While pasting up posters in unauthorised places is considered to be a minor crime in Scandinavia, it is regarded as a quite serious offence disturbing public order in Belgium. The leading member of the Danish June Movement, Ms Drude Dahlerup described the incident as "horrible" and said there was a complete lack of proportion between the offence and the punishment. "I would like to invite Mr Johansson to visit me in Denmark and test if this is something the Danish responsible authorities intend to obey," she said. Ms Drude Dahlerup saw the case as a clear example of the loss of civil liberties, that the current EU legislation is leading towards. (EUobserver.com 14.12.2001)
The European Ombudsman, Mr Jacob Soderman, has sent a Special Report to the European Parliament calling on it to intervene in order to get the Council of the European Union (the 15 EU governments) to obey the Ombudsman findings that documents should be given to Statewatch. Statewatch lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman concerning the Council failure to respond to requests for documents and information in July 2000. The first was a request to the Council for access to all the documents considered at a meeting of the Police Cooperation Working Party (Experts' meeting - Interception of Telecommunications) on 3-4 September 1998 - this concerned the discussion over a document, ENFOPOL 98, to extend telecommunications surveillance to cover e-mails and mobile phones. The Council tried to deny the existence of six documents listed in the "Outcome of proceedings" (the minutes) of the meeting. The documents were referred to as "Meeting documents 1-6". Statewatch's complaint noted that the Council issued the following instruction when its public register of documents went online on 1 January 1999: "Confidential, Restreint, SN and non-paper documents will not be included in the public register. For this reason, from now on these documents will not be mentioned in official Council documents (in particular: on provisional agendas and in outcomes of proceedings)." The second aspect of the complaint concerns Statewatch's request for a list of the documents considered at a series of meetings in January 1999 including any documents not listed on the agenda or in the "Outcome of proceedings" such as "Room documents, non-papers, meetings documents, SN documents". Statewatch argued that, under the Code of Good Administrative Behaviour, citizens were entitled to have a list of all the documents considered so that they could see which views/positions were accepted and which were rejected. The Council failed to supply the lists. The Ombudsman found that "the Council's failure to maintain a list or register of all documents put before the Council.. constituted maladministration and made a Recommendation to the Council. The Council responded by saying it accepted this Recommendation but the Ombudsman's Special Report concludes that its response: "raise doubts as to whether the draft recommendations will indeed be implemented" The Ombudsman view is that the "Council should establish such a list and make it available to citizens. This is vital so that citizens can use their right of access to documents properly". The report concludes that under the new Regulation on access to documents, which came into operation on 3 December the Council is obliged to place all documents on the public register. (Statewatch 5/12/01)
"Under the post 11 September EU anti-terrorism plans we have the frightening prospect that details of suspected protestors and dissenters will be held by the Schengen Information System on one centralised, computerised EU-wide database and all "foreigners" held on another - and both are to be the subject of "targeted" action and/or surveillance. Protestors and "foreigners" are to be given special treatment as posing "threats" to the internal security of the EU." (Statewatch 3-12-01)
Phone-tapping harmonised The members of the "European Institute for the Standardisation of Telecommunications" (EIST) have voted in favour of a single standard for phone-tapping by the police. There will now be one technical interface which will enable the police and the secret services of EU states to tap phones on all networks and in real time. These measures involve not only ordinary land lines but also all generations of mobile phone. The technical means for tapping e-mails are also currently under consideration. In the EU, through this group, all providers of telecommunications are currently therefore putting the final touches to a vast harmonised and simplified system of tapping. The interface does three things. First, it puts the police or security agency in contact with the network to be tapped. Secondly, it intercepts all data relative to the communication being tapped: not only the phone numbers dialled but also text messages, voice messages, redirected calls and information about the whereabouts of the caller. The third and final function is of course to track the content of the communication itself. According to Le Monde, this system of phone tapping is different from the American system, Echelon, because the latter has been developed outside of any legal framework. The European system, by contrast, can be used (in theory anyway) only according to national laws. There is in addition a resolution of the Council of Ministers on phone-tapping, dated 17th January 1995. In January 2000, the European Commission ordered a study to be made of this question which concluded, with the usual ineffable euro-logic, that because telecommunications crossed national frontiers, there needed to be a single European system to harmonise phone-tapping. Indeed, there exists a subgroup of the Council of Ministers, called Enfopol, a committee on which sit all the ministers of the Interior of the 15 member states. It concluded in December 1998 that the judicial procedures for tapping phones ought to be "lightened" so that communications could be tapped both within the EU and beyond. The suspicion is now that members of Enfopol were involved in the elaboration of the EIST’s technical interface: according to Le Monde, two officials from the British Home Office helped EIST develop it. Le Monde comments that Britain, together with Russia, is the country most often criticised in Europe for the way in which it taps phones. [Le Monde, 3rd October 2001]
At Lisbon in April 2000, the Government then committed to a Europe-wide programme (codenamed E-Europe). The EU wanted to introduce smart cards that would identify us personally - multi-functional cards to get access to government services, get NHS treatment, pay for road user charges, etc. (New Alliance 30/9/01) In 1996 the European Commission said "It will be difficult to achieve political union without there being the perception of an external political threat. A terrorist outrage would contribute to the perception of an external political threat." (Daily Telegraph 28/9/01)
The ability of police forces to combat internet crime is under threat from a proposed EU decision on privacy. Officials in Brussels have been discussing amendments to legislation that would require internet companies to delete all traces of online activity immediately after a web session. The proposal has met with strong opposition from the EU Telecommunications Council. The Home Office said Britain wanted to allow access for police and other agencies to some internet data but would not force internet companies to retain information. (Daily Telegraph 9/8/01)
European leaders have decided to identify and track the anti-capitalist demonstrators by ordering police and intelligence agencies to co-ordinate their efforts, which basically means spying on protesters travelling between European Union countries, reports the Independent. The confidential decisions, taken by Europe's interior ministers, indicate that the "authorities will use a web of police and judicial links to keep tabs on the activities and whereabouts of protesters", writes the Independent. The EU police intelligence, Europol, is likely to be given a key role in this unprecedented project. Unsurprisingly, this plan to track anti-capitalist demonstrators has alarmed civil rights campaigners. They claim that people who have done no more than taken part in a legal demonstration may be entered into the database and their personal information could be exchanged. Earlier this month, Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily called for a European anti-riot police force which could prevent repeats of the events like the anti-globalisation protesters riots in Genoa. Although Germany's EU partners rejected Schily's call, the ministers decided to extend the measures which can be used under existing powers, reports the Independent. European governments and police chiefs will: - Set up permanent contact points in every EU country to collect, analyse and exchange information on protesters; - Create a pool of liaison officers before each summit, staffed by police from countries from which "risk groups" originate; - Use "police or intelligence officers" to identify "persons or groups likely to pose a threat to public order and security"; - Set up a task force of police chiefs to organise "targeted training" on violent protests Tracking will work based on two systems: Schengen Information System will provide basic information and Supplementary Information Request at the National Entry (Sirene) is a supporting network. Sirene is able to send different information like pictures and fingerprints to police or immigration officials when a suspect enters the country. (Euobserver.com 20.08.2001)
As the Council of the European Union (representing all 15 governments) is discussing the draft "conclusions" on giving law enforcement agencies access to communications data, the UK, France and Belgium already have plans to introduce the retention of telecommunications data for at least 12 months. The plans are revealed in official national responses to a survey carried out by the EU's police cooperation working party. It appears that the UK government may well be misleading the public over its intentions regarding data retention. The survey confirms the determination of EU law enforcement agencies to achieve a number of objectives: * to stop the deletion of telecommunications data as required under data protection law * to stop users having anonymity in their communications (including an attack on cybercafes) * to ensure that law enforcement/security agencies have access to retained/archived data * to ensure that data is retained, in the first instance for at least 12 months once the EC privacy and data protection directives are breached they can argue for longer periods later. (Statewatch 28 May 2001).EUROPEAN Union ministers approved a British-backed measure yesterday to allow the police access to telephone, email and internet records. The proposal is bitterly opposed by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the EU's data protection body, which have all described it as a threat to civil liberties. It sets the stage for a clash between the EU's three branches of government. In a protest letter to the Council of Ministers, the EU's data protection working party, made up of experts from the 15 member states, describes the proposals as a threat to democracy. Britain, the prime mover behind the new rules, argues that they are necessary to help the police fight crimes such as child pornography, racist incitement and money laundering. But Britain's own data protection commissioner, Elizabeth France, said the proposals contravene the privacy principle in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. (Daily Telegraph 29/6/01)
A draft proposal put forward by the European Commission on "the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector" has been criticised by the civil liberties group Statewatch as "authoritarian" and "totalitarian". Documents leaked to Statewatch reveal that the EU is being lobbied to rip up existing data protection legislation and replace it with laws to give sweeping snooping powers to police forces. According to the Commission proposal, companies should keep a record of all phone calls, faxes and Internet use for seven years just in case police forces need to search them during criminal investigations. Furthermore, according to Statewatch, access to documents could be refused because disclosure "could impede the efficiency of ongoing deliberations". Current EU legislation forces law enforcers to get permission every time they want to tap electronic communications and restrict the amount of time that firms can keep communications before they must be destroyed, according to BBC News. "Authoritarian and totalitarian states would be condemned for violating human rights and civil liberties if they initiated such practices," said Tony Bunyan, editor of Statewatch. "The fact that it is being proposed in the 'democratic' EU does not make it any less authoritarian or totalitarian." Previous attempts to pass new "snoop" laws have been defeated because of objections from Data Protection Commissioners. The proposal is likely to face opposition from businesses reluctant to face the cost of setting up huge archives of data on their employees. (EUobserver.com 17/5/01) The Government has been accused of deceiving the public after a leaked report revealed that it is supporting European proposals to force telephone and internet companies to keep records of all communications for seven years.(D Telegraph 18/05/01)
Freedom of expression is in real danger now in Spain, if the Electronic Commerce (Society of Information Services) Directive is approved, most websites that are not "properly" registered would be considered illegal and have to face enormous fees which will in fact paralyse their activity forever. This directive -ready to be approved in the Spanish Parliament any time- has invented the concept of "society of information services" and wants to legislate plain exchange of information as an economic activity, ruling out therefore, any publisher -like NGOs- which do not really perform any commercial activities and can not face all the legal and bureaucratic activities that the Electronic Commerce (Society of Information Services) Directive wants. According to article 2, free distribution of information, even if it implies no direct payments from customers is an "society of information services" and, therefore, subject to this electronic commerce directive. You don't have to be paid to be considered an actor in the "society of information services": as it is stated later in the article 2, search engines or on-line compilation of information are also "society of information services", which means that news digests, electronic libraries, a repository of academic papers, NGOs that publish regular news about violations of human rights... have to conduct their actions in cyberspace according to an electronic commerce directive. Strangely enough, the only exceptions considered under this article are: Public Broadcasting -TV and Radio, TV Teletext". Article 50 makes it mandatory to register any webs related to these "Services". Therefore this directive may turn illegal any website that has not been publicly registered and has its own domain name, i.e. most websites in Spain, as you may suspect. Article 50 establishes a fine of 90,000 euros (£55,000) if there is a "lack of communication to the public register in which they are registered, of the domain name or names which they use to offer "society of information services". Article 11 makes impossible anonymous websites. According to this article, it is mandatory to give your a) Name, social/commercial address. b) All the data submitted to a commercial/public register plus several extra data if you are really developing electronic commerce activities. Also see that, as long as you are a "society of information services" provider it is mandatory to present data under b), the data submitted to a register, this clearly implies that you *must* register before opening a website. So, even if you don't mind putting down your own name, but you are not registered anywhere, it means you are violating article 11 as well. Also article 30 makes it mandatory to conduct all the operations with the user as if it was a commercial transaction: that is, you have to provide a proper contract, language of choice and several other measures that make sense if we are considering a proper commercial transaction, but which are nonsensical if we are talking about just people exchanging information in the web. Article 11. All together, an offender could be faced with a fee of 29.000.000 pesetas (aprox. 175.000 euros/£108,000) just for publishing a website. (davidc@kriptopolis.com 15/5/01)
A new law recently approved in Italy to extend the rules for the press and periodical press to web sites and electronic press. The new law states that EVERY web site has to be considered as a press product, and it has to print the name of the publisher (or the editor) and the city where it is published (whatever this could mean). If the site includes news or is updated periodically, which would be the case of a webzine or of a site with a news section, it falls under these following laws valid for newspapers and periodical press: 1) it has to declare a responsible managing editor, that has to be enlisted in the professional Order of Journalists 2) it has to pay a tax (of about 200$) 3) it has to be registered in the lists of the tribunal of the city where it is published. (Eurofaq posting 13/4/01) http://www.interlex.it/testi/l01_62.htm
Carnivore is the FBI's system for reading the e-mail of bad guys. Carnivore is a sealed box that is installed at the network operations center of an Internet Service Provider. It filters packets, finds e-mail going to and from identified criminals, and saves that e-mail for later decryption and analysis. What bothers the Internet Service Providers is they have no control over the Carnivore box, and no way of protecting the privacy of all the customers who aren't drug lords or escaped felons. From a network architecture standpoint, the best location for Carnivore is right after the ISP's router. This puts Carnivore in the path of every packet entering or leaving the ISP. It's also a major reason why ISPs might not want to install Carnivore boxes -- it's the network's point of greatest vulnerability. In this position, Carnivore can act as a listening and recording device, OR IT CAN ACT AS A SWITCH. If we ever hear a proposal from the FBI in which it plans to install Carnivores at all 6000 ISPs in the U.S., we'll be giving the government the power to do something it can't do right now. Shut the Internet down. (Ian Geldard London, UK 1/9/00)
French businesses are being encourage to encode sensitive communications to frustrate what Paris believes is an American-British eavesdropping system, Echelon, used for economic espionage. (D Telegraph 24/2/00)
EUROPEAN governments will have powers to trawl through the personal records of British citizens suspected of criminal conduct under an agreement approved by Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, at a meeting of European Union ministers yesterday. The new Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance will allow EU member states to request e-mail, fax, and telephone records of suspected criminals in other EU countries, in some cases without a specific court order. They will also be allowed to request surveillance of telecommunications traffic, which can include intercepts of data and voice messages. The convention is aimed at drug trafficking, child pornography, and other forms of serious cross-border crime, but the document does not specify the offences. Last year, the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee raised questions about the document's failure to define what sort of crimes could justify such intrusive surveillance. The European Parliament also lodged objections, responding to concerns that cross-border surveillance requests could be misused to pursue minor offenders or even to keep watch on political opponents. The document was not seriously changed. "It's a massive extension of the power to law enforcement agencies," said Tony Bunyan, head of Statewatch, a civil rights organisation. "Police forces in another country can basically say, 'Here's a telephone line we want to tap' and there's not much to stop them." But Mr Straw said it was a necessary instrument for fighting organised crime. (Daily Telegraph London 30/5/2000)
MI5 is building a new e-mail surveillance centre that will have the power to monitor all e-mails and internet messages sent and received in Britain. The government is to require internet service providers, such as Freeserve and AOL, to have "hardwire" links to the new computer facility so that messages can be traced across the internet. The security service and the police will still need Home Office permission to search for e-mails and internet traffic, but they can apply for general warrants that would enable them to intercept communications for a company or an organisation. (Various papers 30/4/00)
Whitehall's information commissioner, Elizabeth France, is to quit her post just weeks after a row with the home secretary, David Blunkett, over his draconian anti-terrorist laws. The respected watchdog is critical of the government's move to take powers to snoop on personal emails. She told 300 staff in an email disclosing her decision not to seek another four-year term next month that she would be "very sad to move on". Mrs France, who is not a natural boat rocker and is hoping to be found another Whitehall berth, is thought to have been frustrated by a cabinet deal that will not implement far-reaching freedom of information legislation until 2005. Standing down, the former Home Office civil servant said it would be "a wrench". Mrs France is the third high-profile woman to leave public service. The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Elizabeth Filkin, was forced out after the Commons authorities cut the post's pay and hours and told her she would have to reapply for the job. Dame Helena Shovelton gave up her post as chairwoman of the audit commission after it became apparent she would not be reappointed. (Guardian December 31, 2001)
BUGGING, phone-tapping and letter-opening by the police and security services have risen by 60% since Jack Straw became home secretary. Government figures reveal that last year Straw personally signed 1,645 bugging warrants to tap telephones - almost five a day. With each lengthy document taking about 20 minutes to assess, the figures show that Straw could be spending up to one hour and 40 minutes signing bugging certificates every day.( Times Newspapers Ltd 9/7/00)
The UK Government came under fire on Thursday from the Internet community after it published a Bill to regulate covert surveillance. The critics say the legislation, if passed, could lead to innocent people being sent to jail simply because they have lost their data encryption codes. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill covers the monitoring and the interception of communications by law enforcement and security agencies, social security and tax inspectors. It will, for example, lay down the legal rules that must be followed by the police and security services when they tap someone's phone. The agencies will be allowed to sign their own warrants. Internet service providers will have to install surveillance equipment, probably at their own cost. The Bill proposes that the police or the security services should have the power to force someone to hand over decryption keys or the plain text of specified materials, such as e- mails, and jail those who refuse. At issue is the burden of proof. Critics of the legislation say someone might go to jail unless they could prove they did not have a requested key - an impossible defence for someone who has lost the software code. The presumption of guilt remained for those who had genuinely lost or forgotten their keys. However, the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, is clearly confident about the legal advice he has received. "The Human Rights Act and rapid change in technology are the twin drivers of the new Bill," he said. (Ian Geldard, London, England 15/2/00 and FT 11/2/00) Individuals will have to produce their decryption keys when given notice to do so by law enforcement, and a new offence called "tipping-off" makes it a crime to tell anyone other than a legal advisor that such a notice has been issued. (Eurofaq posting 25/2/00)
The Justice and Home Affairs Council at its meeting on the 29 October 1999 asked its representatives to continue efforts on arrangements for interception of telecommunications in the investigation of criminal proceedings. (The Week in Europe 4/11/99)
FRENCH intelligence is intercepting British businessmen's calls after investing millions in satellite technology for its listening stations. The French government upgraded signals intelligence last year. Now secret service elements are using it to tap into commercial secrets. At least eight centres, scattered across France, are being "aimed" at British defence firms, petroleum companies and other commercial targets. Eavesdroppers can "pluck" GSM digital mobile phone signals from the air by targeting individual numbers or sweeping sets of numbers. Targets have included executives at British Aerospace, British Petroleum and British Airways, according to French sources. (Sunday Times 23/1/00)
Tony Blair is under pressure from European leaders to support the creation of a "federalised" EU intelligence service to manage world crises. It is seen as the first step towards the creation of Europe's own spy agency, based in Brussels. The European Rapid Reaction Force must include not only air and naval elements but also command, control and intelligence. France believes the EU force can act independently of Nato and free from American interference only if it has its own intelligence capability. At the Franco-German summit in Paris the two countries committed themselves to work together to enhance their intelligence capability. Britain's secret services remain profoundly sceptical about any sharing of high-grade intelligence with the French or Germans, let alone the smaller European nations. Key pieces of intelligence from within Nato were leaked to Belgrade during the Kosovo conflict, including some of the targets to be bombed. (Sunday Times 5/12/99)
The resolution approved Tuesday by a European Parliament committee set up to investigate the satellite-based surveillance system condemned Echelon's existence but, aside from agreeing to step up meaningful rhetorical pressure on the Americans, achieved very little. The committee officially wrapped up its inquiry late Tuesday by passing more than 60 of 160 amendments before approving the entire resolution, 27-5. One of Schmid's seven amendments, for example, noted that "the U.S. intelligence services do not merely investigate general economic facts but also intercept detailed communications between undertakings, particularly where contracts are being awarded, and they justify this on the grounds of combating attempted bribery.... (This) detailed interception poses the risk that information may be used for the purpose of competitive intelligence-gathering rather than combating corruption, even though the U.S. and the United Kingdom state that they do not do so." This focus on industrial espionage reflects the general thinking of many in the European Parliament that the threat to commerce is as much a concern as potential violations of individual privacy rights. But it was criticized by some committee members, at times quite fiercely. (Wired News 3/7/01)
Europol Seeks a Broad Structure for Tapping Mobile Communications. Austrian officials' appetite for coldly broadening their authority to monitor private citizens is in no way a unique case in Europe. As an Europol internal document obtained by Telepolis shows, massive attempts on the part of European police forces are underway to acquire the ability to eavesdrop on the Iridium digital system, currently in a sensitive stage of expansion (but now gone bust). In their controversial "Appraisal of the Technologies of Political Control", Paragraph 7.4.2, the technical committee refers to an "EU-FBI Global Telecommunications Surveillance System" which is to be established under the "third pillar" of the Maastricht Treaty for the co-operation in the areas of justice and police work. Proper oversight of developments in political control technologies is further complicated by the phenomena of 'bureaucratic capture' where senior officials control their ministers rather than the other way round. Politicians both at European and sovereign state level, whom citizens of the community have presumed will be monitoring any excesses or abuse of this technology on their behalf, are sometimes systematically denied the information they require to do that job. A related "memorandum of understanding" with the file number ENFOPOL 112 10037/95, signed by all the members of the EU, has been kept secret to this day. The background is the fear of European secret services that the control over analogue satellite communication gained via the military Echelon system will be lost in the digital age. (Telopolis internet paper). Statewatch, UK based research group, concludes that "It is the interface of the ECHELON system and its potential development on phone calls combined with the standardisation of "tappable communications centres and equipment being sponsored by the EU and the USA which presents a truly global threat over which there are no legal or democratic controls." (Press release 25.2.97). Privacy advocates in Germany have erected a Web site called Freedomforlinks to protest what they perceive as plans by the European Union (EU) to allow "legally empowered authorities" to put in place Europe-wide surveillance systems. If Enfopol becomes legal reality, police forces will get any surveillance power they wish, the article said. As soon as the surveillance gateways to Internet providers Global System for Mobile Communications, Iridium (the communications network) and other networks are established, "legally empowered authorities" other than police forces are expected to log on, the article said. (Eurofaq posting Mary Lisbeth D'Amico 15/3/99). Enfopol 98, a European Union initiative to tap telephone conversations, e-mail and faxes, has been rejected outright by Euro-MPs who see it has an invasion of privacy. The European Parliament's Civil Liberties committee voted to throw out the initiative that was developed in secret by EU justice ministers. EU justice ministers, however, can ignore the Parliament's opinion on security issues. (Connected Telegraph 22 April 1999)
FRANCE yesterday opened a criminal investigation against Britain and the US, claiming they have used a worldwide electronic spy network to steal its industrial secrets. The Americans allegedly have been using eavesdropping centres in Britain and other countries to snatch major business contracts from France. "It is unusual for one country to try to put an ally in the dock like this," said Paris public prosecutor Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, who is leading the inquiry. "But France's security is at stake. "We have started our probe following allegations that the Americans, abetted by the British, are undermining French industry and the national economy." In another development, the European Parliament in Strasbourg will vote today on setting up its own inquiry into (Echelon) high-tech snooping by the Americans. The Clinton administration has boasted that US industry is being boosted by what it calls "aggressive advocacy", estimating that it has gained to the tune of up to £35billion. That "advocacy" takes the form of using satellite technology to intercept telephone calls, e-mails and faxes from competitors overseas in order to get the latest business information. Information is passed on to US bidders, giving them the advantage in deals. Ironically, while the Echelon network is part-operated by Britain's GCHQ, British firms have also fallen victim to the corporate eavesdropping, seeing contracts go to their US business rivals. To intercept and filter telephone, fax and e-mail messages, the Americans are using a satellite data processing centre at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, a former RAF base. Going under the codename F83, this "big ears" centre has 1,400 engineers, computer experts and linguists. (Express Newspapers 5/7/00)
Interception Capabilities 2000. (1999 STOA Report on communications intelligence) This report identifies a previously unknown international organisation - "ILETS" - which has, without parliamentary or public discussion or awareness, put in place contentious plans to require manufacturers and operators of new communications systems to build in monitoring capacity for use by national security or law enforcement organisations. Recent diplomatic initiatives by the United States government seeking European agreement to the "key escrow" system of cryptography masked intelligence collection requirements, and formed part of a long-term program which has undermined and continues to undermine the communications privacy of non-US nationals, including European governments, companies and citizens; There is wide-ranging evidence indicating that major governments are routinely utilising communications intelligence to provide commercial advantage to companies and trade. Since 1993, unknown to European parliamentary bodies and their electors, law enforcement officials from many EU countries and most of the UKUSA nations have been meeting annually in a separate forum to discuss their requirements for intercepting communications. These officials met under the auspices of ILETS (International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar). ILETS was initiated and founded by the FBI. (Duncan Campbell's home page http://www.gn.apc.org/duncan/)
A core objection to paranoid rants regarding the US National Security Agency (NSA) electronic eavesdropping apparatus called ECHELON is the simple observation that spooks trying to use it are literally buried in an avalanche of white noise from which it's quite difficult to extract anything pertinent. But now the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), no doubt with some assistance and guidance from NSA, is making strides towards cracking that little inconvenience. The CIA's Office of Advanced Information Technology is developing a number of data-mining enhancements to make life easy for those who would eavesdrop on electronic communications, Reuters reports. First up is a computer program called Oasis, which automatically converts audio signals into conveniently readable, and searchable, text. And it distinguishes voices, cleverly enough, so that the transcript of an intercepted 'broadcast' (a conference call via mobile phones?) will show each speaker automatically identified as Male 1, Female 1; Male 2, Female 2; and so on. If the transcript seems implausible at any point, or disappointingly mundane, the operator can easily listen to relevant parts of the broadcast to check the machine's accuracy, and determine that "recognize speech" actually was "wreck a nice beach," and send in the appropriate goon squads to prevent it. Oasis also references search terms and keywords automatically. Thus text containing the phrase "truck bomb" would pop up in a query for "terror*". The CIA is planning to develop Oasis for spy-useful foreign languages such as Arabic and Chinese, the wire service says. Next comes a software tool called FLUENT, which enables an operator to search stored documents in a language s/he doesn't understand by using his or her own language for queries. So, imagine an uneducated, highly-trained Anglophone with a PhD in some anti-intellectual pseudo-'discipline' like medicine, education, women's studies, engineering, creative writing, economics or computer science, naturally poorly acquainted with languages, but charged with grave national security responsibilities. Say this person needs to know what the Chinese have been publishing about nuclear warheads. Salvation: FLUENT allows them to search on "nuclear warhead" in English, and still dredge up Chinese (or whatever) documents for people with actual language skills to translate and evaluate for them. Is that cool or what? Presently, FLUENT can translate Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Ukrainian, Reuters says. The omissions are almost as telling as the languages included. What, no Japanese, no Arabic, no Spanish, no Hebrew, no French? Laotian and Navajo we can understand, but what have we here? Laziness, discrimination, or misplaced trust? (The Register.co.uk 6/3/01)
THE European Union condemned Britain's role in an Anglo-American espionage network as illegal yesterday, vowing to confront the Government over the controversy at the next EU justice ministers' meeting. Fernando Gomez, the Portuguese Interior Minister, on behalf of EU governments, said: "The Council cannot accept the existence of this kind of system, which does not respect the legal requirements of the member states." European MPs amassed enough votes this week to demand a parliamentary investigation into the Echelon eavesdropping capability, arguing that Britain was in violation of Article 11 of the Amsterdam Treaty obliging member states to "refrain from any action which is contrary to the interests of the Union". (D Telegraph 31 March 2000)
Former CIA director R James Woolsey gave evidence in Washington that the US would interfere in contracts if it learnt (with Echelon) that one of the parties was bribing local government officials. A CIA letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee said: "In 1993, we alerted the policymakers to 51 cases where these tactics were used to disadvantage American firms." According to claims in an Irish magazine, Ireland will become part of the Echelon alliance in June. One British MEP told the Independent on Sunday: "Our European counterparts are asking which side we are on, the EU or the Americans?" (Independent on Sunday 14/5/00). Mr. Woolsey accused France of using bribery to promote the interests of its companies abroad. (D Telegraph 31/3/00)
Internet service providers will have to design their systems to allow easy tapping by the police and intelligence services under new government proposals. The Home Secretary said the law regulating the interception of communications needed to be updated to reflect technological change. The government has been forced to tighten the law following the European Court of Human Rights ruling in 1997 in the case of Alison Halford, the former assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside. The court decided the police tap on her office had been an infringement of her human rights. (Financial Times 23 June 1999)
Little-known European Union proposals could soon lead to a massive expansion of surveillance. The EU Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters will extend police monitoring powers from phone calls and faxes to the Internet and satellite based mobile phone calls. The member state's rationale is the need to tackle international organised crime and keep tabs on criminals operating abroad. But the Convention, being closely co-ordinated with the Echelon countries, holds a real potential for wider surveillance of ordinary people by police and intelligence services, possibly including those of foreign government agencies. The Convention does not define the criminal activities for which surveillance may be warranted. Could a suspicion of taking part in the demonstration be enough? Could the Convention obliged police in one country to give instant surveillance authorisation to agents of another? The intelligence agencies argued that any infringement of Civil Liberties should be blamed on criminals, not the people pursuing them. But Italy's top security watchdog, for one, is not convinced. "Once upon a time," he said, "invoking the good of society, information was gathered by torture, an even more effective method than telephone tapping. But that did not mean that civilised countries did not, at a certain point, decide to furnish themselves with rules to ban it."(Guardian 25 January 1999)
A report by the UK Government's Performance and Innovation Unit has recommended the end of support for key escrow. With a foreword by the Prime Minister, this report is considered the final nail in the coffin of a failed policy. The report recognised that "key escrow as a requirement of licensing would not deliver to law enforcement agencies even a reasonable amount of assured access to secured communications". The introduction of any such mandatory link would not support the Government's twin objectives to support e-commerce and law enforcement. (Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet)
The government's approach to regulation of the electronic commerce sector is attacked by the all-party trade and industry select committee. Although the government has dropped proposals designed to allow the security services to eavesdrop on e-mails, it has failed to align the law with the use of computer evidence in criminal and civil proceedings. There is no legal framework for e-commerce. The new bill may be largely overshadowed by legislative reforms in Europe, such as the draft copyright directive. (Financial Times 18 May 1999)
The Constitutional Council in France has given an exceptional ruling on the vexed question of whether the President of the Republic can face criminal prosecution for acts committed before his election. The Council ruled that he could be, which opens up the prospect that Mr. Chirac will face prosecution before the High Court for rigging his re-election as Mayor of Paris following his defeat at the presidential election in 1988. As a posthumously published memoir by a senior RPR official has confirmed, that election was marred by systematic fraud, notably the inclusion on the electoral register of bogus names. [Le Monde, 11th October 2000]
A FINANCIAL crisis, centered on the Paris Hôtel de Ville where Jacques Chirac ruled as mayor from 1977 until 1995 has engulfed the French president in a scandal that could ultimately destroy the rest of his term in office.The arrest last week of Xaviàre Tiberi, the wife of Jean Tiberi, M Chirac's successor as Mayor of Paris, is expected to unleash a judicial assault. Summoned for questioning over her allegedly fictional employment by the RPR-run council in the Essonne departement outside Paris, she was held in custody for eight hours and her apartment was searched. The scale of the abuses and the amount of money involved are only now being revealed. Mme Tiberi is suspected of being one of a number of fictional employees of the Essonne council. On the very day of Mme Tiberi's arrest a report appeared in a Paris newspaper claiming that she was not the only Gaullist with a bogus job. A former personnel director at the Hôtel de Ville affirmed that at least 200 people were fictitiously on the payroll in the Eighties. It is expected that Michel Roussin, who ran M Chirac's office at the time, and Alain Juppé, who was the head of the city finance department, will be visited by the examining magistrate. M Chirac too may be asked to give evidence. (24/5/99 Electronic Telegraph)
European ISPs expressed outrage after the European Parliament voted to require ISPs and telephone companies to provide law-enforcement agencies with full-time real-time access to Internet traffic. The European Parliament accepted the Lawful Interception of Communications council resolution on new technologies -- otherwise known as Enfopol -- which calls for extensive requirements on ISPs and other network operators. These include establishing monitoring interfaces for real-time full-time access to content and user identifier information relating to interception targets and those they communicate with. According to official documents, geographical location information on cellular phone users is also required, along with decryption of encoded messages if encryption is provided by that service provider and implementation of interceptions within "a few hours or minutes." The resolution even requires service providers to provide access to calls traversing more than one network and information on the services and features used by the intercept target. It says multiple simultaneous interceptions may have to be catered for with multiple interfaces provided by the service provider to transmit data to law-enforcement agencies' premises in a readily available format. (05/13/99, 3:56 p.m. ET) By Madeleine Acey, TechWeb (http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990513S0009)
The British government has become the first in Europe to openly propose internationally agreed requirements for ISPs to build technology into networks that would allow for police surveillance. Under proposals for changes to the Interception of Communications Act announced by the Home Office this week, all communications service providers (CSPs) would be required to build interception software or hardware into their systems. The law -- if passed -- will apply to all types of new communications services, including Internet telephony, TV conferencing, paging, and satellite based personal communications systems. The International User Requirements have been drawn up over the past six years by a group founded by the US FBI, called the International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar (ILETS), which meets in secret. The group excludes representatives from industry or civil rights organisations, and has attempted to standardise its objectives as an International Telecommunication Union requirement. According to this week's "white paper," every type of network will be covered, including VPNs operated through the Internet or other TCP/IP systems. The new law will also cover interception of business telecom services, ranging from basic networks of a few lines found within a small office to large networks linking offices, in both the public and private sectors, the document says. (06/25/99, 3:40 p.m. ET) By Duncan Campbell, TechWeb (http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990625S0019)
The existence of pornography is a pretext to control the Internet. The EU has proposed an action plan that commits governments to tackle pornography, illegal or harmful material and other new information services. (Like Eurofollies? - Ed) (Leominster Journal MEP's report 20/5/98)
The Commission is attempting to persuade the rest of the world to sign up to a global telecoms charter to control the Internet. The US government is profoundly suspicious of the idea, which it fears could be a Trojan Horse for European style regulation. (European Voice 25/6/98)
The European Union is considering the imposition a police state -type control on all people using Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to access the Internet. Under the plan, all ISPs including Demon Internet would have to have a 'black box' (known as an Interception Interface) which will allow law enforcement officers from any EU country to monitor all the Internet activities of any persons by remote control. This monitoring includes all data accessed on the Internet by the person and details including credit card numbers used to pay for the account, PIN codes, passwords, logon idents and any declared encryption algorithms and keys. It also includes the contents of any E-mail messages sent by the person. (Demon Internet Magazine 4/4/99). Secret European Union plans to require "interception interfaces" to be built into the Internet for surveillance purposes have drawn devastating criticism from British ISPs and from LINX, the major European Internet connection site. According to Britain's major Internet providers, the EU policing plans are technically infeasible, would impose massive costs, and would undermine the development of European communications and e-commerce. And they would not work.( Duncan Campbell 31.12.98)
In 1995 the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution imposing a requirement on terrestrial telephone carriers and cellular telephone services that they must enable wire tapping by the authorities, including location-tracking on demand for cellular phones and up to 50,000 simultaneous wire-taps on phone companies. The resolution was not made public until 20 months after it had been adopted. (Index on Censorship vol. 27, no.1 Jan 1998)
Europe's largest database, containing files on more than a million asylum seekers and criminal suspects, has "serious flaws" that raise "significant concerns" about human rights, a UK pressure group will say today. Justice, the human rights organisation, will urge the government to lobby for proper controls on the database, which the UK agreed to join earlier this year. The group claims that a report, which it is publishing today, justifies a full inquiry into the Schengen Information System (SIS), a database with 1.3m files on individuals and a further 8.4m files on objects such as stolen cars. Justice claims the database is a "fortress Europe" tool being used primarily to keep people out and trace stolen property, rather than tackle serious crime. "Unwanted aliens" account for 89 per cent of the entries on individuals, compared with just 7 per cent relating to criminal activities. The system can be accessed from 50,000 computers by thousands of police, immigration officers and visa-issuing embassy staff. This raises obvious security concerns. The report cites as an example the discovery of SIS data in a Belgian railway station in November 1997. A Belgian Ministry of Justice employee was subsequently arrested for allegedly selling SIS files to criminal gangs. Individuals face an uphill struggle correcting errors on the system, according to the report. ( Financial Times; Dec 18, 2000)
Countries in the Schengen group, which allow unrestricted cross-border travel, maintain a database of undesirable individuals called SIS. It has records on 4 million people designated as undesirables who are to be kept out permanently (Telegraph Jan 98)
Britain is preparing to link up with a huge Europe wide security database which is used keep tabs on the movement of suspected criminals, illegal immigrants and drug traffickers, as well has a range of undesirables as such as football hooligans and rock music fans. The SIS aims to maintain public order and state security. In return for access to the SIS, the British police must handover files on known criminals and undesirables for inclusion in the mother database that is housed in Strasbourg amid tight security. Britain's lack of privacy laws will make it easier to enter data on individual's race, religion, sexual orientation, political opinion, contacts and associates to be added to SIDS and Sirene, a smaller complimentary database. Criminals also see SIDS as a valuable source of information. The mother database has been broken into at least once. (Telegraph Connect 12 March 1998)
The EU has secretly agreed to join a telephone tapping system in co-operation with the FBI. It will tap telephones, faxes, and e-mail. The plans were drawn up under a secret network of committees established under the Third Pillar of the Maastricht Treaty covering co-operation on law and order. This is an area where the EU's democratic deficit is most evident. The Home Secretary denied the Lords European Community Committee a copy of the report. (Guardian 25/2/97). Phone-tapping will ostensibly become more difficult under the integrated services digital network directive on harmonising telecommunications. This, however, will have the effect of disrupting City firms and financial regulators which rely on monitoring financial markets by recording telephone deals (FT 9/7/97)