Thanks to CM. The Guardian Weekly, Volume 156, Issue 9 Week ending March 2, 1997, Page 4: UK to join FBI phone taps Richard Norton-Taylor and Alison Daniels BRITAIN has secretly agreed with its European Union partners to set up an international telecommunications tapping system in co-operation with the FBI, it was revealed on Monday. The agreement covers telephones and written communications -- telexes, faxes and e-mail. To make tapping easier, telecommunications companies will be obliged to give security and intelligence agencies the key to codes installed in equipment sold to private customers. Detailed plans are being drawn up by officials in a secret network of EU committees established under the "third pillar" of the Maastricht Treaty, covering co-operation on law and order issues. Civil liberties groups, while agreeing that there was a need for such an agreement to fight against serious crime, said the plans raised a number of privacy and data protection issues and must be the subject of a full public debate. Britain is an enthusiastic supporter of joint action in this area, which is conducted on an inter-governmental basis with no role for the European Commission, the European Parliament or the European Court of Justice. It is an area where the EU's "democratic deficit" is most evident. Key points of the plan are outlined in a memorandum of understanding signed by EU states in 1995, which is still classified. It reflects increasing concern among European intelligence agencies that modern technology will prevent them from tapping private communications. EU governments agreed to co-operate closely with the FBI in Washington as they work out detailed plans. ----- As posted yesterday, for a report on EU-FBI wiretapping: http://www.privacy.org/pi/activities/tapping/