EU security proposals are 'dangerously authoritarian'

[Eugen Leitl]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/5496912/EU-security-proposals-are-dangerously-authoritarian.html


EU security proposals are 'dangerously authoritarian'

The European Union is stepping up efforts to build an enhanced pan-European
system of security and surveillance which critics have described as
bdangerously authoritarianb.

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

Published: 4:32PM BST 10 Jun 2009

Civil liberties groups say the proposals would create an EU ID card register,
internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry
border systems operated by machines reading biometrics and risk profiling
systems.

Europe's justice ministers will hold talks on the "domestic security policy"
and surveillance network proposals, known in Brussels circles as the
"Stockholm programme", on July 15 with the aim of finishing work on the EU's
first ever internal security policy by the end of 2009.
 
Jacques Barrot, the European justice and security commissioner, yesterday
publicly declared that the aim was to "develop a domestic security strategy
for the EU", once regarded as a strictly national "home affairs" area of
policy.

"National frontiers should no longer restrict our activities," he said.

Mark Francois, Conservative spokesman on Europe, has demanded "immediate
clarity on where the government stands on this".

"These are potentially dangerous proposals which could interfere in Britain's
internal security," he said.

"The chaos and division in Gordon Brown's government is crippling Britain's
ability to make its voice heard in Europe."

Critics of the plans have claimed that moves to create a new "information
system architecture" of Europe-wide police and security databases will create
a "surveillance state".

Tony Bunyan, of the European Civil Liberties Network (ECLN), has warned that
EU security officials are seeking to harness a "digital tsunami" of new
information technology without asking "political and moral questions first".

"An increasingly sophisticated internal and external security apparatus is
developing under the auspices of the EU," he said.

Mr Bunyan has suggested that existing and new proposals will create an EU ID
card register, internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance,
automated exit-entry border systems operated by machines reading biometrics
and risk profiling systems.

"In five or 10 years time when we have the surveillance and database state
people will look back and ask, 'what were you doing in 2009 to stop this
happening?'," he said.

Civil liberties groups are particularly concerned over "convergence"
proposals to herald standardise European police surveillance techniques and
to create "tool-pools" of common data gathering systems to be operated at the
EU level.

Under the plans the scope of information available to law enforcement
agencies and "public security organisations" would be extended from the
sharing of existing DNA and fingerprint databases, kept and stored for new
digital generation ID cards, to include CCTV video footage and material
gathered from internet surveillance.

The Lisbon Treaty, currently stalled after Ireland's referendum rejection
last year, creates a secretive new Standing Committee for Internal Security,
known as COSI, to co-ordinate policy between national forces and EU
organisations such as Europol, the Frontex borders agency, the European
Gendarmerie Force and the Brussels intelligence sharing Joint Situation
Centre or Sitcen.

EU officials have told The Daily Telegraph that the radical plans will be
controversial and will need powers contained within the Lisbon Treaty,
currently awaiting a second Irish vote this autumn.

"The British and some others will not like it as it moves policy to the EU,"
said an official. "Some of things we want to do will only be realistic with
the Lisbon Treaty in place, so we need that too."