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December 2009
LIBYA: Jesuit Refugee Service report: Do
they know? Asylum-seekers testify to life in Libya (pdf)
LIBYA: 'Go
back and die in your own country, hospital is only for Libyans'
(Times of Malta, link)
Lithuania
hosted secret CIA prisons (BBC News, link), Lithuania:
Discovery of CIA prisons should prompt further investigation (Amnesty International,
link) and Panel:
Lithuanian security approved CIA prisons (AP, link)
The
EU's murderous borders: four poles of suffering and denial of
rights
"A report published by Migreurop (a Euro-African
network of 40 organisations from 13 countries working on issues
of immigration policy, externalisation and their consequences
within and beyond the EU's borders) in October 2009 paints a
vivid picture of the effects of the EU's migration policies by
focussing on three regions in which a number of common denominators
are identified in spite of the significant difference between
them (the Calais region and the north of France, the Greek-Turkish
border and the Oujda region in eastern Morocco). These are added
to by a case study on events on the Italian island of Lampedusa,
where practices have been adopted for the sake of expediency
that confirm the suspicion that legal guarantees and human rights
conceived as minimum standards for the treatment of all human
beings are becoming a luxury that is not meant for migrants who
have been criminalised and de-humanised as "illegals"."
UK: Names
of innocent people will stay on police database - Human rights
groups say those not convicted of any crime could lose out on
jobs
(Observer, link)
GREECE: Border
crackdown on migrants (Kathimerini, link): "Citizens’
Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis yesterday heralded
a major border crackdown aimed at significantly curbing the influx
of undocumented immigrants into the country, noting that the
majority of would-be migrants are trying to access the European
Union from Turkey via Greece."
European Parliament: Regulation on access to EU documents: Access
to EU documents: urgent update of rules needed (Press release, pdf)
and Full-text
of Resolution
(pdf). The Resolution was tabled by the S&D, ALDE, Greens/EFA,
ECR and GUE/NGL groups and adopted today by 341 votes to 206,
with 20 abstentions. Greens/EFA Shadow Rapporteur, Heidi Hautala
MEP said: "if the Council and the Commission do not budge
from their positions, Parliament should reject the whole proposal".
The Commission put forward proposals to amend the Regulation on access to EU documents in April 2008. The European Parliament prepared a series of amendments, some amending the Commission's proposals and some additional ones seeking to extend the right of access. The Council and its Legal Service said that the parliament could not put forward new proposals not covered by the Commission draft and declared "inadmissible" 27 of the parliament's amendments. The European Parliament, and its Legal Service, disagreed and refused to adopt its 1st reading position. The Commission said it could not consider any changes until the parliament and Council agreed their initial positions. Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, commented: "We have an institutional impasse"
For full documentation and background see: Statewatch's Observatory: Regulation on access to EU documents: 2008-2010
EU: Council of the European Union: International agreements with
third countries: Applicable
procedures with the European Parliament on Agreements signed
on the basis of Articles 24 and 38 of the Amsterdam Treaty (pdf). The Council has
reluctantly agreed, following advice from its Legal Service,
that agreements signed but not concluded with third states (eg
the USA) will require the consent of the European Parliament.
This affects three agreements concerning Norway and two with
the USA (PNR and SWIFT). Some Member States are insisting that
they would still have to go through national constitutional procedures
for agreements signed before the Lisbon Treaty came into effect
on 1 December 2009.
EU: Council of the European Union: "Article 36 Committee"
renamed "CATS": Proposal for
a new denomination for the Coordinating Committee in the area
of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (CATS) (pdf) and EU doc no:
16070/09 (pdf). The Article 36
Committee was set up under the Amsterdam Treaty but is not mentioned
in the Lisbon Treaty. It will deal, as before, with legislative
and implementing measures discussed in Council Working Parties
until 2012 when its role will be reviewed.
UK: Home Affairs Select Committee report on: “E-borders"
project to digitise immigration control "will be illegal
in EU", says Committee (Press release, pdf) and Full
report
(pdf)
EU: Calls for Justice to have a separate Commission Directorate-General
(DG): Questions for Commissioner Reding from the Council
of Bars and Law Societies of Europe: CCBE
Recommendations (pdf). It includes the following question to the
new Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship
at the parliamentary hearings in January:
"Internal organisation at the Commission: Now that Justice and Home Affairs have their own Commissioners, should Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship not have its own Directorate-General, separate from Home Affairs?"
This is backed up by separate questions submitted by the German Bar Association:
"we believe that only a separate DG would have the effect of truly strengthening liberty rights as opposed to interests of security having as its sole purpose the defense of the rule of law:
1. How will
Mrs Reding ensure that her office will not suffer from the fact
that she will not have a separate Directorate-General?
2. How will Mrs Reding ensure in practice that Justice issues
will have a weight in the collaboration of different DGs and
also within DG JLS?
This follows on from the comments made earlier by Statewatch editor, Tony Bunyan:
"So there is to be a single Justice and Home Affairs Council, two Commissioners and a single Commission Directorate-General. National experience suggests that there should be a complete separation between Home Affairs and Justice/Fundamental rights. By keeping a single Directorate-General (under a single Director-General) there is a great danger that the already pervading culture of internal security and control will continue to contaminate justice and rights."
Eurojust
chief quits over power abuse scandal (euobserver, link)
EU: Europe
Plans Spies in the Skies (Inter Press Service, link): "Warplanes
similar to those used to bomb civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan
will be flying in Europe's skies within the next few years, under
a scheme being prepared by Brussels officials."
UK: Lord
Carlile criticises police procedures (IRR News Service. link) assesses a
recent report on the arrest of twelve Asian students on suspicion
of terrorism. And see Lord Carlile report: Operation
Pathway report (pdf)
Migreurop report: 2009 (pdf)
"For its first Annual report on the violation of human rights at borders, Migreurop has chosen to maintain the four symbolic poles of the misdeeds of the policy enacted by the European Union in the field of immigration and asylum. The Greek-Turkish border, the Calais region in north-western France, that of Oujda in eastern Morocco and the island of Lampedusa in the far south of Italy, are as many stops, more or less lengthy, sometimes definitive, in the odyssey of thousands of people who, every year, by trying to reach Europe, seek to escape the fate that they have been dealt through chosen or forced exile."
EU: Copenhagen Summit: Protests
in Copenhagen: Rights groups press for inquiry into police tactics (Guardian, link) and
100,000
Protest at COP15, Police Make Mass Arrests (Indymedia, link)
UK: Calling
Time On The Use Of Secret Evidence In The UK (link)
UK: Home Affairs Select Committee: The
Work of the UK Border Agency (pdf)
European Parliament: Question to the Council and the European
Commission from the ALDE (Liberal group): New
developments on CIA extraordinary renditions programme and secret
prisons on EU soil (pdf)
EU: Fundamental Rights Agency: First ever
EU-wide survey of minorities: Mapping Discrimination across Europe (Press release, pdf)
and Full
report
(large file, 7MB, link). See also: Racism
at 'shocking' levels in EU, landmark report says (euobserver, link)
EU: European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS): EDPS
sees advantages of new Agency for large-scale IT systems, but
urges the legislator to better define its scope of activities (Press release, pdf)
and Full
report
(pdf):
Peter Hustinx, EDPS, says: "The creation of an Agency for such large-scale databases must be based on legislation which is unambiguous about the competences and the scope of activities of the Agency. Such clarity would prevent any future misunderstanding about the conduct of the agency and avoid the risk of function creep. As currently drafted, the proposals do not meet those standards."
Sanctions and Security Research Program: Human
Rights and Targeted Sanctions: An Action Agenda for Strengthening
Due Process Procedures (pdf):
"International sanctions intended to counter terrorism have been criticized for violating human rights and failing to comply with due process legal standards. Blacklisting practices have impeded the work of certain civil society groups and charities. The resulting controversy has eroded the credibility of UN Security Council counterterrorism sanctions and made it more difficult for some states and regional organizations to comply with these measures. Action is urgently needed to reform current listing and delisting procedures through a strengthening of due process procedures."
EU: Implementing the Lisbon Treaty: Progress
report from the Presidency to the European Council - Implementation
of the Treaty of Lisbon (pdf) This document reports that the decision
to set up the new Standing Committee on Internal Security (COSI)
has not yet been adopted due to national parliamentary scrutiny
reservations. And further that COREPER (the permanent committee
of Brussels-based Member State representatives) - not the Council
- have adopted arrangements for the continuation of the Article
36 Committee (set up under the Amsterdam Treaty but not mention
in the Lisbon Treaty) and the Strategic Committee on Immigration,
Frontiers and Asylum (SCIFA) until January 2012. The Article
36 Committee and SCIFA are comprised of high level national officials
from Interior and Justice Ministries. The two committees sit
between COREPER and the many justice and home affairs Working
Groups (which are largely comprised of national practitioners,
eg police, immigration and customs officers) and deal with all
planned legislation and implementation proposals.
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:
"As COSI is to be concerned with operational matters, and is expressly precluded from dealing with legislation, the abolition of the Article 36 Committee and SCIFA would give the Working Parties a greatly increased role. To allow practitioners the primary role in developing new laws would run totally contrary to the separation of powers. For example, police officers from Member States would be drafting the laws which they would be responsible for enforcing."
- Draft
Council Decision on setting up the Standing Committee on operational
cooperation on internal security (pdf)
- COSI:
Statement for entry in the Council Minutes (pdf)
- Article
36 Committee: Continuation until 1 January 2012 (pdf)
- SCIFA:
Continuation until 1 January 2012 (pdf)
EU: Stockholm
Programme
(EU doc no: 17024/09 pdf). This is the almost final version sent
to COREPER and the European Council.
USA: Report from the Government Accountability Office: Supply
Chain Security: Feasibility and Cost-Benefit Analysis Would Assist
DHS and Congress in Assessing and Implementing the Requirement
to Scan 100 Percent of U.S.-Bound Containers (pdf)
"CBP has made limited progress in scanning containers at the initial ports participating in the SFI program, leaving the feasibility of 100 percent scanning largely unproven. Since the inception of the SFI program, CBP has not been able to achieve 100 percent scanning at any participating port. While CBP has been able to scan a majority of the U.S.-bound cargo containers at the comparatively low volume ports, it has not achieved sustained scanning rates above five percent at the comparatively larger ports..... CBP does not have a plan to scan cargo containers at all ports because, according to agency officials, challenges encountered thus far in implementing SFI indicate that doing so worldwide will be difficult to achieve."
European Court of Human Rights judgment: Deportation
to Algeria of a man convicted of terrorist acts could expose
him to inhuman or degrading treatment (Press release, pdf)
UK: Suspend
Iraq refugee deportations (BBC News, link)
EU: Statewatch Analysis: The "Third
Pillar acquis" after the Treaty of Lisbon enters into force (Version 2, pdf) by
Professor Steve Peers, University of Essex
EU: The
Lisbon Treaty: Who is Europe Still Trying to Impress? (Jurist Forum, link)
by Virginia Keyder
EU: NGO campaign against mandatory data retention of telecommunications:
Civil
Liberties Groups Ask EU to Repeal Data Retention Directive (pdf). See also for
background and documentation: Statewatch's Observatory on: The
surveillance of telecommunications in the EU
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council, 30 November-1 December
2009, Brussels: Press
release - 1st day (pdf) - Background
Note
(pdf) - "B"
Points agenda
(pdf) - "A"
Points agenda
(adopted without discussion, pdf) - Additional
"A" Points (pdf)
November 2009
UK: Introducing
fingerprint checks at the border (pdf) and Leaflet (pdf):
"From 30 November 2009, the UK Border Agency is introducing fingerprint checks at the border for passengers with biometric UK visas, entry clearances and identity cards for foreign nationals (ICFNs). This is being introduced incrementally at ports across the United Kingdom by March 2010."
It should be noted that the UK is to fingerprint children of 6 years old and above - unlike the provisions in the EU Directive which sets the age at 12 years old and above.
European Court of Justice: The Treaty of
Lisbon and the Court of Justice of the European Union (Press release, pdf)
UK:
Crime
and Security Bill (pdf) and Explanatory
Memorandum
(pdf)
UK: Home Affairs Select Committee report: The
Detention of Children in the Immigration System (pdf)
EU: New Justice and Home Affairs set-up: The Council's: Decision
of the Council (General Affairs) establishing the list of Council
configurations (pdf) confirms that the Justice and Home Affairs
Council is to continue with this name. The European Commission
has just announced the responsibilities of the new Commissioners:
Commissioners (pdf). Viviane Reding
is to be the Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and
Citizenship and Cecilia Malstrom the Commissioners for Home Affairs.
This move splits the job of the previous Commissioner for Justice,
Liberty and Security (JLS) into two. Cecilia Malstrom has been
given the "poisoned chalice" of "Home Affairs"
which is in fact responsibility for Internal Security, Immigration
and Migration/Borders. However, the current Commission Directorate-General
for JLS is to remain in place with Directorates B (Immigration
and Asylum), C (Migration and Borders) and F (Security) answering
to Commissioner Malstrom and Directorates D (Fundamental Rights
and Citizenship) and E (Justice) coming under Commissioner Reding:
see: DG
JLS organisational chart (pdf).
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch Editor, comments:
"So there is to be a single Justice and Home Affairs Council, two Commissioners and a single Commission Directorate-General. National experience suggests that there should be a complete separation between Home Affairs and Justice/Fundamental rights. By keeping a single Directorate-General (under a singe Director-General) there is a great danger that the already pervading culture of internal security and control will continue to contaminate justice and rights."
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council, 30 November-1 December
2009, Brussels: Background
Note
(pdf), "B"
Points agenda
(pdf) and "A"
Points agenda
(adopted without discussion, pdf) and Additional
"A" Points (pdf). Among the documents being considered are:
- EU
Counter-Terrorism Strategy - discussion paper (pdf) This includes:
"examine the need to adopt common legislation on new
investigation techniques (e.g. on line computer search), see:
Statewatch analysis: EU agrees rules
for remote computer access by police forces – but fails,
as usual, to mention – the security and intelligence agencies (pdf) by Tony Bunyan
- EU
Action Plan on combating terrorism (pdf)
- EU
Action Plan on combating terrorism - legislative instruments (pdf) and
- The
Prüm Decisions - the need for a focused approach on the
implementation (pdf)
- Council
Decision on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, of
the Agreement between the European Union and the United States
of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging
Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes
of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (pdf) Under the provisions
of the Lisbon Treaty the Council can sign and agree this provisional
application under the existing rules on 30 November, but after
that the new rules apply for further steps, ie final conclusion
of the Treaty - when it is be expected that the European Parliament
will want to take a view.
EU: Council of the European Union: Document setting out the roles
of the Council Presidencies: Draft Council
Decision laying down measures for the implementation of the European
Council Decision on the exercise of the Presidency of the Council (pdf). Although the
Council of the European Union now has the new post of President
of the European Council member states will still provide the
Chairs of the Council's working parties in rotation for the usual
six months term.
UK: Home-schooling
parents may face criminal record checks (Daily Mail,
link)
LITHUANIA: Secret
CIA prison revealed in Lithuania (euobserver, link) and
Lithuania
investigates facility that may have been CIA 'black site'
(Washington Post, link)
EU: STOCKHOLM PROGRAMME: New
draft Programme (25 November, pdf). See also European
Parliament Resolution on the Stockholm Programme and Press
release from the GUE (United Left group)
UK: Terrorism Act 2000: Home Office: Operation
of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent
legislation: Arrests, outcomes and stops & searches (pdf)
ROMANIA: Court
judgment on mandatory data retention (pdf) This case rules that the national
law implementing the data retention directive is unconstitutional:
"In conclusion, essentially taking into consideration the broad range of applicability of Law 298/2008 as compared to the continuous character of the obligation to retain the traffic and localization data of the physical and legal persons as users of public electronic communication services or public communication networks, as well as other "related data" necessary for its identification, the Constitutional Court observes, for the reason shown above, that the examined law is unconstitutional in its entirety."
ITALY: Statewatch Analysis: Italy: Open-ended emergencies:
deployment of soldiers in cities and summary treatment for Roma
people
(pdf) by Yasha Maccanico:
"The measures by the current government that came to power on a platform in which “security” was a priority to which all other concerns were subordinated, confirmed its approach whereby a number of issues were to be treated as “emergencies”, thus justifying the introduction of policies and practices that would appear at best unusual under normal conditions."
EU: STOCKHOLM PROGRAMME: Changes in the
draft Programme and see: The
Stockholm Programme (EU doc no: 16484/09, dated 23 November 2009).
UK: Report from Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary into
the policing of demonstrations: Adapting
to Protest - nurturing the British Model of Policing (4MB, pdf) See also:
G20
police chief accused of misleading MPs about undercover mission
- Inquiry finds undercover police deployed at G20 protests to
spy on activists, contrary to Bob Broadhurst's denial to MPs (Guardian, link)
GERMANY: Germany
to draw up 'values contract' for new immigrants (BBC
News, link)
EU: Knocking down walls and defending the right to migrate.
Migreurop network meeting on 27 and 28 november 2009, Paris.
Since it was set up in 2002, the Migreurop network, a collection
of more than forty organisations on both sides of the Mediterranean,
has been denouncing the imprisonment of migrants, the militarisation
of the European Union's borders and its policies of control and
repression of emigration. Understandably, therefore, we wish
to see in official declarations calling for walls to be knocked
down, like Nicolas Sarkozy's 'Berlin appeal', signs of a turning
away from what is in effect a war being fought against migrants.
For too long, this war has shaped European Union migration policies,
and it has caused thousands of victims.
For the full statement see: French, English, Spanish and Italian (links)
Updated:
EU: Europol: European Parliament press release: Europol
reforms: MEPs criticize Council and demand democratic scrutiny (pdf): "On Tuesday
Parliament rejected four proposals, on Europol's analysis work
files, the confidentiality of its information, its exchange of
personal data with partners and its agreements with third countries,
arguing that Europol rules should not be amended until the EP
becomes a co-legislator in this area." See also: MEPs
flex legal muscles over police reforms ahead of new treaty (euobserver, link).
One difficulty the Council has to overcome if they intend to
go ahead and adopt the Europol measures is that the European
Parliament voted to refer the reports back to the Civil Liberties
Committee - and therefore did not formally adopt the reports
- under the "consultation" procedure the Council has
to receive and consider the parliament's views.
EU: Europol:
Council dismisses the concerns of the European Parliament who
want a series of Decisions on Europol delayed so that they can
be considered under the co-decision powers of the Lisbon Treaty:
Draft
Council Decision adopting the implementing rules governing Europol’s
relations with partners, including the exchange of personal data
and classified information (pdf):
"The
opinion of the European Parliament is expected to be issued on
25 November 2009. Considering the outcome of the vote in the
LIBE Committee on 12 November 2009, it can be expected that the
European Parliament will reject the draft Council Decision adopting
the implementing rules governing Europol’s relations with
partners, including the exchange of personal data and classified
information.
On this basis and after considering the opinion of the European
Parliament, COREPER is requested to invite the Council to adopt
the draft Council Decision"
EU:
NORWAY-SWEDEN: Enhanced police cooperation between the EU
and Norway: On Thursday, November 26th Norway join the EU's
decision on the stepping up of cross-border cooperation, particularly
in combating terrorism and transnational crime (the so-called
Prüm-decision).
"Norway's accession means that EU member states will have access to Norway's DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration, and vice versa. Norway's accession also means that Norwegian law enforcement authorities will be able to participate in joint operations and provide assistance to EU member states at higher events, disasters and serious accidents.
Specifically, the Norwegian connection, for example, mean that the Swedish police will be better able to find out whether a DNA trace that is found at a crime scene in Sweden have been linked to a DNA profile of a suspected perpetrator in Norway. Today's operational partnership with Norway will be deepened, for example, may be appropriate to invite the Norwegian police to Sweden as the strengthening of international football matches."
EU: Council of the European Union: Draft
Council conclusions on model provisions, guiding the Council's
criminal law negotiations (pdf) Council "Conclusions"
are policy decisions. This concerns laying down model provisions
for "internal legislation and international agreements."
And goes on to say that "with regard to the form
of these model provisions, delegations expressed the wish for
soft law instruments." (emphasis added). "Soft
law" is not binding on EU Member States but equally it enables
(and legitimises) national governments to "harmonise"
their criminal laws. In simple terms, "soft law" is
not binding but if all EU states adopt the same policy then it
has the same practical effect as binding legislation - without
the inconvenience of involving the European Parliament.
EU: Draft
Mutual Legal Assistance Agreement between the European Union
and Japan
(pdf) This is a de-classified document which means that it has
only been made public at the point of adoption by the Council
of the European Union.
UK: Human Genetics Commission: Nothing
to hide, nothing to fear? Balancing individual rights and the
public interest in the governance and use of the National DNA
Database
(pdf) see also: Police
routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims (Guardian, link)
EU: Stockholm Programme: The
Stockholm Programme (EU doc no: 16484/09, dated 23 November 2009).
Due to be agreed by the JHA Council on 30 November-1 December
2009 and then formally adopted by adoption by the European Council
in Stockholm on 10 December 2009.
EU:
UK House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union: The
Stockholm Programme: home affairs (pdf)
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council, 30 November 2009: Provisional
Agenda
(pdf)
EU:
European Commission: Green Paper
on obtaining evidence in criminal matters from one Member State
to another and securing its admissibility (pdf)
GREECE: Violent
dissent in Greece: It's time for the left to interrogate the
systemic origins of the terrorism that has greeted the new Greek
government (Guardian, link)
UKRAINE: BORDER MONITORING PROJECT UKRAINE (UZHGOROD, ZAKARPATTYA):
Monitoring
the implementation of social and human rights of refugees and
other vulnerable migrants in the Border region of the European
Union and Ukraine (pdf)
EU: European Commission: Draft
Commission Decision of supplementing the Schengen Borders Code
as regards the surveillance of the sea external borders in the
context of the operational cooperation coordinated by the European
Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External
Borders
(pdf) The European Parliament's powers on this issue come under
regulatory procedure with scrutiny (RPS). See: Note
on Regulatory procedure with scrutiny (RPS)
UPDATE: 24 November 2009: According to the Commission's comitology register, there was a vote in the Schengen Borders Code comitology committee in October and there was 'no opinion' by the MS representatives. That means the Commission cannot simply adopt it - it now has to make a proposal to the Council and the Council has to act within 3 months; there is also a role for the EP in this procedure. It is very unusual for a draft comitology measure not to be accepted by MS representatives. This is the very first JHA implementing measure subject to the RPS procedure, as it happens.
EU: LIQUIDS BAN: Very useful summary from ALDE group shadow rapporteur:
Introduction
of liquids onboard of aircrafts State of play (pdf). The European
Parliament's powers on this issue also come under regulatory
procedure with scrutiny (RPS).
The proposal from the Commission envisages three steps: - from 2010 allow liquids of transit passengers - by 2012 big airports have to screen liquids with available technology - by 2014 all airports with available technology. See: Commission: Information paper: Ban on liquids onboard aircraft and possible next steps (pdf)
EUROPOL: Analysis Work Files: Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ) on the association of Third Parties to
Europol’s AWFs (pdf)
EU: Council
president could be sidelined at the UN (European Voice,
link)
UK: Secret
CCTV cameras in homes to spy on neighbours (Evening Standard,
link) UK: Secret
CCTV cameras in homes to spy on neighbours (Evening Standard,
link)
European Parliament: Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE): There
were some strange goings-on in the LIBE Committee last week when
it came to the vote on its report on the Stockholm Programme.
29 MEPs voted in favour (SD, Socialist and Democrats, and ALDE,
Liberal group), 18 voted against (Greens and GUE, United Left)
and 37 abstained (EPP and other right groups). The high number
of abstentions appears to have happened because of LGBT (lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender people) rights issues - the committee
had voted through by 42-40 votes an amendment from Jeanine Hennis
Plasschaert MEP adding:
"Calls on Member States to ensure that the principle
of mutual recognition is also applied to same-sex couples in
the EU – notably married couples, partners or de facto couples
– at least in relation to rights relating to freedom of
movement".
Draft report before the Committee: Stockholm
Programme
(pdf)
EU-USA: SWIFT AGREEMENT: Draft Council
Decision on the signing, on behalf of the EU, of an Agreement
between the EU and the USA on the processing and transfer of
Financial Messaging Data from the EU to the US for the purposes
of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme ("SWIFT"
Agreement)
(pdf) and see: EU
stalls bank data deal with US ahead of Lisbon Treaty (euobserver, link)
European Parliament: Letter from the Director of the Fundamental
Right Agency (FRA) on: Lithuanian
law
(pdf)
EU: Future FRONTEX surveillance systems: FRONTEX
R&D Unit: Automated Border Control Systems: State of the
Art in Europe
(link): FRONTEX’s role in policing the EU’s external
borders and the open seas beyond is well known. What people seem
much less aware of is that FRONTEX also has a significant internal
policing mandate and will, if all goes according to current plans,
soon preside over one of the world’s most extensive surveillance
systems. This will be achieved through these interlinking of
several existing EU databases and police communications systems
and the creation of two new overarching surveillance frameworks
(EUROSUR and EU entry-exit). See also: NeoConOpticon
- The EU Security-Industrial Complex pp: 33-41.
EU-IRAQ: Damning assessment of freedom and rights in Iraq: Council
of the European Union press release: Declaration
by the Presidency on behalf of the EU concerning the human rights
situation in Iraq (pdf)
EU: CUSTOMS INFORMATION SYSTEM: European Parliament report on:
Report
on the initiative of the French Republic with a view to adopting
a Council decision on the use of information technology for customs
purposes
(pdf)
"While the rapporteur understands the Member States' desire to construct an effective system for combating all forms of illegal trade he finds it regrettable that such measures should be decided in a hurry by the Member States prior to ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. This gives the impression that the Council of the European Union is consciously seeking to take key decisions before the European Parliament is in a position to be involved by codecision." (p46)
UK: MoD
loses 100 computers: More than 100 Ministry of Defence
computers and dozens more memory sticks have gone missing so
far this year, it has been disclosed. (Daily Telegraph, link) UK: MoD
loses 100 computers: More than 100 Ministry of Defence
computers and dozens more memory sticks have gone missing so
far this year, it has been disclosed. (Daily Telegraph, link)
EU: Europol:
- Council
Decision determining the list of third States and organisations
with which Europol shall conclude agreements (pdf)
- Council
Decision adopting the implementing rules for Europol analysis
work files
(pdf)
- Council
Decision adopting the rules on the confidentiality of Europol
information
(pdf)
NORTHERN IRELAND: Childhood
in Transition Experiencing Marginalisation and Conflict in Northern
Ireland
(pdf) by Siobhán McAlister,
Phil Scraton and Deena Haydon
IRELAND: Irish Council for Civil Liberties: Submission
on the Communications (Retention of Data) Bill 2009 (pdf)
UK: Ministers
cancel 'Big Brother' database - Plan to store details of every
phone call and email 'kicked into long grass' after furore
(Independent, link), while the Daily Telegraph says: State
to 'spy' on every phone call, email and web search (link).
Both are right: the Independent refer to a plan to create a central
state database of all communications to be held ad finitum and
the Telegraph refers to the fall-back plan to require service
and telecoms providers to hold the same data - but not until
after the election next year.
Ireland-Poland: European
prison crowding ruling could lead to similar case here (Irish Times, link)
DENMARK: Foreigners
to get 100,000 kroner incentive to leave Denmark (Copenhagen
Post, link)
EU-USA: Council
Decision on the conclusion on behalf of the European Union of
the Agreement on extradition between the European Union and the
United States of America and the Agreement on mutual legal assistance
between the European Union and the United States of America (Official Journal, pdf).
See: Full
text of the agreements (pdf)
HUNGARY: Europe's
new outer frontier Hungary battles illegal migrants (Monster
and critics.com, link)
UK: CIA RENDITION: Proposals
to outlaw extraordinary rendition in the UK drawn up - All party parliamentary
group recommends criminalising the use of British facilities
for extraordinary rendition flights (Guardian, link). See the
full report: Closing
the Gap
(pdf)
UK: Met
tries to cover up photos of police without IDs (Evening Standard, link):
A leaked email obtained by the Standard shows Scotland Yard
instructing that pictures of uniformed officers breaching rules
which state that they should be identifiable at all times must
be "culled" from image libraries and databases."
UK: Genetic
Tests for UK Asylum Seekers Draw Criticism (New York
Times, link)
EU: LISBON TREATY: Full-text of the Lisbon
Treaty
(pdf) and justice and home affairs section: Title
V (Articles 67- 89) (pdf)
Analyses by Professor Steve Peers, University of Essex:
- Statewatch
Analysis: The “Third Pillar acquis” after the Treaty
of Lisbon enters into force (pdf)
- Statewatch
Analysis: EU Lisbon Treaty Analysis no. 4: British and Irish
opt-outs from EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) law (pdf)
- Analysis:
Can the Treaty of Lisbon be denounced after it enters into force? (pdf)
See also: Preparatory
work in view of the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon (EU doc no: 14928/09,
pdf), Presidency
report to the European Council on the European External Action
Service
(pdf) and Proposed
Council working groups if Lisbon Treaty is adopted (pdf), Preliminary
draft amendments to the Council's Rules of Procedure (pdf) and: EU:
COSI - Standing Committee on Internal Security rescued from the
debris of the EU Constitution plus: Standing Committee on Internal
Security: Presidency
note on the state of work on the draft Council Decision on setting
up the Standing Committee on operational cooperation on internal
security (COSI) (pdf) and Analysis: Cementing
the European state: - new emphasis on internal security and operational
cooperation at EU level
For full background analyses and documentation see Statewatch's Observatory on the Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty
EU SUMMIT: Conclusions:
29-30 October
(pdf). Includes the following on FRONTEX: "calls for
the enhancement of the operational capacities of FRONTEX as well
as progress in its development and invites the Commission to
present proposals to that end early 2010. Such an enhancement
could be based on the following elements:
i) the preparation of clear common operational procedures containing
clear rules of engagement for joint operations at sea, with due
regard to ensuring protection for those in need who travel in
mixed flows, in accordance with international law;
ii) increased operational cooperation between FRONTEX and countries
of origin and transit;
iii) examination of the possibility of regular chartering financed
by FRONTEX of joint return flights"
EU: 'Right
to internet' dies quietly in Brussels back room (euobserver,
link) "Early Thursday (5 November) morning the European
Parliament and EU member states reached a deal over a long-delayed
telecoms package when MEPs dropped their opposition to French-style
'three-strikes' laws aimed at illegal internet downloaders, ending
for now the Brussels debate on a fundamental 'right' to internet
access. In a major reversal of the parliament's position for
much of the last year, MEPs in behind-closed-doors negotiations
with the Council of Ministers, representing the member states,
embraced new language in a compromise text that no longer requires
that only judicial authorities be allowed to cut off internet
access."
US-EUROPE: An
Ocean Apart in More Ways Than One (Inter Press Service,
(link), see also: Towards
a Post-American Europe: a power audit of EU-US Relations
(link, pdf)
CIA-ITALY: Rendition
trial ends with Milan CIA chief given eight years (Guardian, link) Italian
court convicts Robert Lady and 23 others in absentia - First
prosecution for US abduction of suspects to torture states and
EXCLUSIVE:
Convicted CIA Spy Says "We Broke the Law" (ABC News, link)
No
Justice for Canadian Rendition Victim Maher Arar: Court Refuses
to Hold US Officials Accountable for Complicity in Torture Abroad (link) See Statewatch's
Observatory: The
use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal
detention of prisoners and Documents
UK-USA-CIA: Jet
named in torture flight report is met by SAS at British airport (Mail Online, link):
"A US plane that featured in a European Parliament report
into the 'extraordinary rendition' of terror suspects was met
by two SAS helicopters in a secret operation at one of Britain's
biggest airports.
The Gulfstream jet landed at Birmingham International Airport
on Friday, October 2, having flown in from an undisclosed location,
and was seen by a member of staff being met minutes later by
the Special Forces regiment aircraft. Records show that the jet
is owned by a subsidiary of L-3 Communications, a multi-billion-dollar
defence corporation based in New York, whose clients include
several American government departments, among them the Department
of Homeland Security." See Statewatch Observatory: The
use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal
detention of prisoners
Britsh Journal of Criminology: Pre-crime
and counter-terrorism: Imagining Future Crime in the "War
on Terror"
by Jude
McCulloch and Sharon Pickering (link): "The article argues
that the shift to pre-crime embodies a trend towards integrating
national security into criminal justice along with a temporal
and geographic shift that encompasses a blurring of the borders
between the states ’ internal and external coercive capacities.
The counter-terrorism framework incorporates and combines elements
of criminal justice and national security, giving rise to a number
of tensions. One key tension is between the ideal of impartial
criminal justice and the politically charged concept of national
security."
From the "old" to the "new" suspect community: Examining the Impacts of Recent UK Counter-Terrorist Legislation by Christina Pantazis and Simon Pemberton (link): "In this paper, we develop Hillyard’s (1993) notion of the "suspect community" and evidence how Muslims have replaced the Irish as the main focus of the government’s security agenda whilst also recognizing that some groups have been specifi cally targeted for state surveillance. We conclude that the categorization of Muslims as suspect may be serving to undermine national security rather than enhance it."
ITALY: Italian security package documents:
- Law
94/2009 of 15 July 2009 (published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale -Official
Journal- on 24 July 2009) on "Measures in the field of public
security" as it was approved
- Non-EU
minors and the right to education after law 94/2009 came into
force,
ASGI, 28 September 2009
- Report
by lawyer Guido Savio, The discipline of expulsion and detention
in CIEs,
Florence, 18-19 September 2009,
- The
marriage of foreigners in Italy after law 94/2009 came into force,
Walter Citti,
ASGI, 10 August 2009,
The website of the Associazione Studi Giuridici sull'Immigrazione
(ASGI) has a page on the "Legal
situation of foreigners after the entry into force of law 94/2009
on public security". It
includes court decisions in which issues are raised as to whether
the law is constitutional, circulars from the interior ministry
as to how the law must be interpreted, and legal analysis of
the implications of the new law, as well as some campaign documents.
October 2009
UK: Leeds Metropolitan University: Climate
& Violence Workshop: Securing the State: Securing the Corporate
Nexus and The Coming Militarization of Climate Change, 27 November 2009, 9:30am-5:00pm,
The Rosebowl 408 (link)
The European Commission has published: The
technical study and country analysis on the implementation of
the free movement directive This includes: "Conformity studies
of Member States’ national implementation measures transposing
Community instruments in the area of citizenship of the Union"
and Country reports.
Spanish
parliament approves controversial immigration law (expatica, link): "Spain's
lower house of parliament has approved a controversial law which
extends from 40 to 60 days the maximum period that illegal immigrants
can be held in detention centres before being deported"
EU: CZECH REPUBLIC OPT-OUT: The European Council has agreed that
the Czech Republic can opt-out of the Chater of Fundamental Rights
if it signs the Lisbon Treaty - the Charter will only apply to
EU, not national, legislation: Text of Protocol (pdf). This would mean
that the Czech Republic, Poland and the UK would opt out of the
Charter. For other opt-outs see: Statewatch
Analysis: EU Lisbon Treaty: Analysis no 4: UK and Irish opt-outs
from EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) law (pdf) prepared by Professor
Steve Peers, University of Essex: The UK, Ireland (and Denmark):
"have opt-outs from the entire area of EU Justice and
Home Affairs law..."
G6-USA: G6
to discuss ways to combat terrorism on 5 November 2009 (European Voice,
link). See also: EU: G6 Interior Ministers + USA to meet in
secret in future: The G6 meetings of Interior Ministers is
comprised of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and the UK
- the meetings in September 2008 and March 2009 were also attended
by the US Secretary of Homeland Security. At the G6 meetings
in March 2009 it was agreed that: "No formal conclusions
would be issued after meetings."
See: UK parliamentary answer on G6 meeting in Berlin in March 2009 (pdf) and see also: - "Behind Closed Doors: the meeting of the G6 Interior Ministers at Heiligendamm", House of Lords EU Committee report (pdf) - G6-G8-Prum: Behind closed doors: policy-making in secret intergovernmental and international fora (Statewatch) - G6: Berlin keen to use informal chats with EU's big six (euobserver, link)
EU-UK: European Commission: Telecoms: Commission
steps up UK legal action over privacy and personal data protection (Press release, pdf)
UK:
Spying on us doesn't protect democracy. It undermines it: By
branding protesters and mainstream Muslim activists as extremists,
the police are effectively criminalising dissent (Guardian, link) by
Seamus Milne and Rebranding
protest as extremismThe label 'domestic extremists' helps the
police justify abusing anti-terror laws to target legitimate
protest (Guardian,
link) by Pennie Quinton
UK: National
DNA Database: Annual report 2007-2009 (pdf). See: Innocent
suspects' profiles still reaching DNA database (Guardian, link) and:
More
than one in 10 people on DNA database for first time (Daily Telegraph, link):
"Overall, when profiles taken in Scotland and Northern
Ireland are included, almost six million people have now been
stored on what is the largest DNA database in the world."
GREECE: The
UN refugee agency is demanding an inquiry into alleged police
brutality at a notorious detention centre on the Greek island
of Lesbos
(BBC News, link)
EU: Council of the European Union: Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on preventing and combating
trafficking in human beings, and protecting victims, repealing
Framework Decision 2002/629/JHA (pdf). Nearly agreed text at the last
Justice and Home Affairs Council.
UK: Police
'can keep records of minor convictions for 100 years': (Daily Telegraph, link):
"Police will be able to keep records of minor convictions
for up to 100 years after overturning a ruling that the information
should be deleted from their computers." Court of Appeal:
Full
text of judgment (pdf)
BELGIUM:
Launching
the website “retain your privacy”: Campaign against
the Belgian transposition of the European directive on the retention
of data
(pdf). Organisations include the Flemish and Walloon League
for Human Rights, the Flemish and Walloon Bar, the
Flemish and Walloon Association of Journalists, the Belgian
Order of Physicians and a Belgian association for Telecom
and Internet customers.
"The platform of the above-mentioned organisations took
the initiative for this campaign in the sincere conviction that
a general obligation to retain traffic and
location data can’t solve the assumed security problem.
The organisations do not only denounce the violation of the right
to privacy, but also the interference with the professional confidentiality
of doctors, lawyers and clerics, as well as the interference
with the protection of informants from journalists. Moreover,
a
general and preventive obligation to retain traffic and location
data can’t protect us from terrorism or crime. Therefore,
we call on the Belgian population to sign
the petition."
SWITZERLAND:
Muslims Targeted in the Name of Minarets (Inter Press Service,
link): By Ray Smith: Switzerland's Muslim community is witnessing
a xenophobic campaign by the political right-wing ahead of a
vote next month on the banning of Islamic minarets.
UK: Police
in £9m scheme to log 'domestic extremists: 'Thousands of
activists monitored on network of overlapping databases (all Guardian, link)
and:
- How
police rebranded lawful protest as 'domestic extremism' - Forces
gather details of single-issue protesters - • Activists
claim monitoring has echoes of the cold war
-Spotter
cards: What they look like and how they work: "These so-called
"spotter cards" are issued by police to identify individuals
they consider to be potential troublemakers because they have
appeared at a number of demonstrations."
- Activists
repeatedly stopped and searched as police officers 'mark' cars
- Campaigner
uncovers police files for £10 and a letter
- Police
forces challenged over files held on law-abiding protesters
- Met
hired lawyers to contest the findings of G20 protest inquiry
- Kingsnorth:
How climate protesters were treated as threat to the country
EU: Standing Committee on Internal Security: Presidency
note on the state of work on the draft Council Decision on setting
up the Standing Committee on operational cooperation on internal
security (COSI) (pdf): 1) This Presidency Note says that it will
be up to each Member State to decide on their representatives
however, this does not specify whether they will be high-level
Home/Interior Ministry officials or so-called "experts"
(eg: police and immigration officers). 2) There is no mention
of SITCEN (the Council's Joint Situation Centre, intelligence-gathering)
or the Police Chiefs Task Force (PCTF), will they be on COSI?
3) COSI will "not be involved in preparing legislative acts"
and the Council is considering abolishing the high-level Article
36 Committee and SCIFA (see Proposed Council working groups,
below), This would leave the Working Groups composed of "experts"
reporting directly to COREPER (permanent Brussels-based representation
of each Member State). 4) The European Parliament and national
parliaments are to be "kept informed" (which may mean
everything or on past experience very little) and are to have
no oversight role and thus no accountability to parliaments.
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:
"COSI is going to be a very powerful body overseeing and directing operational actions on internal security across the EU. It should be controlled by Home/Interior government officials not "experts" whose job is to put into effect operational decisions. It should be accountable to national and European parliaments who should have an oversight role and its documents should be publicly accessible.
Crucially all of its policy decisions to undertake EU-wide operational actions should be public, so too should post-operation reports and assessments of "shortcomings or failures"".
See also: Proposed Council working groups if Lisbon Treaty is adopted (pdf) and: EU: COSI - Standing Committee on Internal Security rescued from the debris of the EU Constitution and Analysis: Cementing the European state: - new emphasis on internal security and operational cooperation at EU level
RIGHTS: 'Too
Innocent to Try, too Guilty to Fly' (PS, link) by Jan Lammers: Getting
blacklisted as belonging to a terrorist organisation is a punitive
sanction, even though governments may say it is only an administrative
measure, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council, 23 October 2009, Luxembourg:
Press
release
(pdf); "B"
Points Agenda
(pdf), "A"
Points
(adopted without discussion, pdf) and Background
Note
(pdf). See also: Draft
Resolution of the Council on a roadmap for strengthening procedural
rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings (REV 1, pdf)
- Press release: EU/US agreements on extradition and on mutual legal assistance
FRANCE: Security
fears spark fresh controversy in Afghan deportation row (France24, link)
EU-USA:
"The Washington Statement", 20 October 2009: EU-US
Joint Statement on "Enhancing transatlantic cooperation
in the area of
Justice, Freedom and Security" (pdf).
It opens with the statement that: "The European Union (EU) and the United States of America (U.S.) share common values of democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms" and in line with the draft EU Stockholm Programme it seeks to "deepen" transatlantic cooperation and to:"take this opportunity to renew our partnership for the next five years."
The "benefits" from the agreements on extradition and mutual legal assistance, the exchange of PNR data and SWIFT need to be balanced against their controversial nature and continuing problems over the failure of the USA to match EU data protection standards. To these "benefits" are added:
"cooperation between the U.S. and EU and EU’s Member States takes place in many ways, formal and informal, and on a daily basis, including through ongoing operational cooperation." (emphasis added)
The Statement commits to "further enhance the exchange of information on policy and operational initiatives, share experiences.... Whenever appropriate, we will foster cooperation with the private sector."
This serves to confirm the view that the dozens of high-level meetings and operational exchanges give the USA a substantial, unaccountable and hidden influence on rights and liberties in the EU. See: EU/US security “channel” - a one-way street?, and The Shape of Things to Come (p49-54).
USA: Privacy
Groups Say Homeland Security Privacy Office Failing (Coalition letter, pdf):
"EPIC and a number of
other privacy and civil liberties groups have sent a letter to
the House Committee on Homeland Security, in response to the
Annual Report recently issued by the Chief Privacy Officer of
the Department of Homeland Security. The annual report discusses
all of the activities of the Privacy Office from July 2008 to
June 2009. Notably absent from the report were ways in which
the Office had performed its statutory obligation to assure "that
the use of technologies sustain, and do not erode, privacy protections."
ITALY:
Parliament
votes down EU moves on press freedom (euactiv, link). In the first test of
the balance of power in the European Parliament a Resolution
critical of press freedom under the Berlusconi government proposed
by the centre-left bloc comprising the Socialists and Democrats
(S&D), Liberals (ALDE), Greens and leftists (GUE/NGL) was
defeated by 338 votes against and 335 in favour with 13 abstentions.
European centre-right, represented by the European People’s
Party (EPP), the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR)
and European Freedom and Democracy (EFD) groups, successfully
defeated the motion:
"Almost 100% of MEPs voted along party lines, meaning decisions by Italian ALDE member Vincenzo Iovine to vote against the resolution and abstentions by Irish Fianna Fáil MEPs Liam Aylward, Brian Crowley and Pat 'the Cope' Gallagher (all ALDE) handed victory to the right.
Indeed, the
vote indicates how difficult it will be for the left to stop
a united right, which emerged stronger from June's European elections
after the EPP's emphatic victory, from dominating the new EU
assembly."
UK:
Climate
& Violence Workshop: Securing the State: Securing the Corporate
Nexus - The Coming Militarization of Climate Change, 27 November 2009, 9:30am-5:00pm:
The Rosebowl 408, Leeds Metropolitan University (link)
GREECE: Press release from the Norwegian Helsinki Committee,
NOAS and AITIMA: Out
the Back Door: illegal deportations of refugees from Greece (Press release, pdf)
and Full
report: Out the Back Door: The Dublin II Regulation and illegal
deportations from Greece (pdf)
EU: Migration
policy is all at sea and needs to change by Judith Crosbie (European
Voice, link). "While only a few countries may be pushing
back boats of migrants, the whole of the EU is pushing away commitments
to asylum-seekers."
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council, 23 October 2009, Luxembourg:
"B"
Points Agenda
(pdf) and Background
Note
(pdf). See also: Draft
Resolution of the Council on a roadmap for strengthening procedural
rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings (pdf)
Greek
socialists to grant citizenship to migrants' children (Guardian, link)
UK: Outrage
at government plan for secret inquests (Independent, link)
ROMANIA: Data
retention law declared unconstitutional (EDRI, link)
EU:
Commission: Minimum standards on granting and withdrawing international
protection:
- Proposal
for a Directive on minimum standards on procedures in Member
States for granting and withdrawing international protection- (COM 554/4, 2009, pdf)
- Annex (COM 554, pdf)
- Proposal
for a Directive on minimum standards for the qualification and
status of third country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries
of international protection and the content of the protection
granted
(COM 551, pdf)
- Impact
assessment
(pdf) and - SEC
1373
(pdf
- Detailed
Explanation of the Proposal
EU: Statewatch analysis: The EU’s JHA
agenda after the Irish referendum (pdf) by Professor Steve Peers, University
of Essex
BULGARIA: Migrants
Denied Even Medicine (Inter Press Service, link): "Hasun Albaadzh,
an asylum-seeker from Syria, died Oct. 6 at the Busmantsi detention
centre on the outskirts of Bulgarian capital Sofia. He had been
held at Busmantsi for 34 months - considerably more than the
maximum legal period of detention - and had been denied proper
medical care."
EU: Anti-trafficking
day 2009 - NGOs call for human rights to be at the centre of
the ministerial conference in Brussels (pdf). Signatories: Amnesty International,
EU Office; The International La Strada Association (La Strada
International); Anti Slavery International; CCME - The Churches´
Commission for Migrants in Europe; GAATW - Global Alliance against
Traffic in Women; Save the Children, Europe Group; Terre des
Hommes International Federation; ECPAT International
UK:SURVEILLANCE: Trust
made meaningless: Excessive surveillance of Muslims undermines
a central component of counter-terrorism work (Guardian, link) by Arun Kundnani. See:
Institute of Race Relations: Spooked! How not
to prevent violent extremism (link, pdf). and: MPs
investigate anti-extremism programme after spying claims: Innocent people 'targeted'
in intelligence swoops and Information gathered includes sexual
activities (Guardian, link)
UK: The
future of policing: A documentary on the G20 protests lays bare
rifts between senior officers – who will triumph, traditionalists
or modernisers? (Guardian, link) by Paul Lewis
France-UK: France,
UK to fly Afghan migrants to Kabul (Reuters, link)
Updated
(18.10.09): EU JUSTICE AND HOME AFFAIRS: DRAFT STOCKHOLM PROGRAMME
from the Council Presidency: Draft
Stockholm Programme (16 October 2009, pdf). See also: Earlier
draft Stockholm Programme (6 October 2009, pdf).
There are important differences between these two drafts: Notes on changes from the draft Stockholm Programme dated 6 October 2009 compared to the later version dated 16 October 2009
See for background: Statewatch Observatory on: Stockholm Programme
Report from Scientists for Global Responsibility: Science
and the corporate agenda (summary) and Full-text
of report
(pdf)
"A new report reveals that the pressure for scientific research to deliver on short-term commercial aims is compromising its ability to yield social and environmental benefits. The report ‘Science and the corporate agenda’ states that even tax-payer funded research is now less likely to work in the broader public interest. These findings are based on extensive evidence across five sectors: pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, military/defence, biotechnology and tobacco.
The report, from Scientists for Global Responsibility, documents how more than two decades of government policy has driven a corporate agenda into the heart of universities, undermining their openness and independence. It highlights damaging effects in individual research studies, in the agenda-setting process for R&D, and in the communication of science to the public."
Institute of Race Relations: Spooked! How not
to prevent violent extremism (link, pdf). An excellent report and
critique of the counter-terrorism PREVENT programme from the
IRR:
"There is strong evidence that a significant part of the Prevent programme involves the embedding of counter-terrorism police officers within the delivery of local services, the purpose of which seems to be to gather intelligence on Muslim communities, to identify areas, groups and individuals that are ‘at risk’ and to then facilitate interventions, such as the Channel programme, as well as more general police engagement with the Muslim community, to manage perceptions of grievances."
"The
atmosphere promoted by Prevent is one in which to make radical
criticisms of the government is to risk losing funding and facing
isolation as an ‘extremist’, while those organisations
which support the government are rewarded.This in turn undermines
the kind of radical discussions of political issues
that would need to occur if young people are to be won over and
support for illegitimate political violence diminished.The current
emphasis of Prevent on depoliticising young people and restricting
radical dissent is actually counter-productive because it strengthens
the hands of those who say democracy is pointless."
EU: LISBON TREATY: The Beneš Decrees
and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (pdf) Analysis by Professor
Steve Peers
UK: Government
anti-terrorism strategy 'spies' on innocent - Data on politics,
sexual activity and religion gathered by government (Guardian, link)
Swiss
to vote on proposal banning new minarets (Times of Malta, link)
Recruited
by MI5: the name's Mussolini. Benito Mussolini- Documents reveal Italian dictator got
start in politics in 1917 with help of £100 weekly wage
from MI5 (Guardian, link)
TURKEY-GREECE: Frontex
seeks Turkish cooperation (Kathimerini, link)
UK-DENMARK: Climate
change activist stopped from travelling to Copenhagen (Guardian, link):"UK
border police used anti-terrorist legislation to prevent a British
climate change activist from crossing over into mainland Europe
where he planned to take part in events surrounding the forthcoming
United Nations summit in Denmark."
UK: £22,000
for man arrested after watching stop-and-search (Evening Standard, link)
EU: Cities
turn to high-tech for curbing traffic, crime (euactiv, link), See
also: IBM
Institute for Business Value: A vision of smarter cities (link)
EU: Regulation on access to EU documents: The debate in the European
Parliaments's Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) on 5 October confirmed
the institutional impasse that currently exists with each of
the three institutions taking different position: See: A
quick guide to the "state of play" on amending the
Regulation
and: Report
on LIBE Committee (pdf). The Commission representative also said
during the debate that:
"Concerning the Lisbon Treaty, the preparatory work on legal adjustments was ongoing, with a view to the preparation of an omnibus proposal when the Treaty came into force." (emphasis added).
Tony Bunyan,Statewatch editor, comments:
"This process is turning into a farce. The Commission put forward proposals to amend the Regulation on access to documents in April 2008. Now 18 months on there has been no progress with each institutions taking different positions. Now we are told that there will be a further "omnibus proposal" will be prepared some time next year when, and if, the Lisbon Treaty is adopted.
Civil society and citizens have been waiting for years for the Regulation to truly "enshrine" the right of access promised by the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999 and we are still waiting."
See also: Proposals
for greater openness, transparency and democracy in the EU (pdf) by Professor Steve
Peers
and Statewatch's Observatory:
the Regulation on access to EU documents:2008-2009
EU: European Commission: Ban on liquids
onboard aircraft and possible next steps – Information from
the Commission (pdf):
"by 29
April 2012 all airports handling at least 10 million departing
passengers per annum shall have the capability to screen liquids,
aerosols and gels in
accordance with the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 300/2008.
Finally, by 29 April 2014 all airports must have the capability
to screen liquids, aerosols
and gels in accordance with the requirements of Regulation (EC)
No 300/2008."
See also: Britain could be sole EU country to retain airline fluid ban (Daily Telegraph, link)
EU/Africa: Fortress
Europe records 33 border deaths in September 2009
Italy:Berlusconi
allies seek to ban burqas in Italy (Reuters, link)
UK: Government
reverses Brown's passport pledge (Kable, link) The Identity and Passport
Service has confirmed that passports will in future require extra
information from applicants – their fingerprints.
EU: EURODAC-EUROPEAN DATA PROTECTION SUPERVISOR: Press release:
Law
enforcement access to EURODAC: EDPS expresses serious doubts
about the legitimacy and necessity of proposed measures (pdf) Full
text of Opinion (pdf): "The analysis leads to the conclusion
that the necessity and proportionality of the proposals, which
are both crucial elements to legitimate privacy intrusion, are
not demonstrated. As a result, the EDPS has serious doubts
whether the proposals are legitimate and whether legislative
instruments should be adopted on this basis." (emphasis
in original) Peter Hustinx, EDPS, says:
"The fight against terrorism can certainly be a legitimate ground to apply exceptions to the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection. However, to be valid, the necessity of the intrusion must be supported by clear and undeniable elements, and the proportionality of the processing of personal data must be demonstrated. This is all the more required in case of an extensive intrusion in the rights of individuals constituting a vulnerable group in need of higher protection because they flee from persecution".
The EDPS also recommends assessing the legitimacy of the proposals in a wider context, notably:
- the tendency of granting law enforcement access to personal data of individuals that are not suspected of any crime and that have been collected for other purposes;
- the need for a case-by-case assessment of every proposal of this kind and for a coherent, comprehensive and future-oriented vision, preferably related to the next five-year framework programme for justice and home affairs ("Stockholm programme");
EU: STOCKHOLM PROGRAMME: European Parliament: Draft
Resolution
(pdf) and Opinions from: Czech
Republic Senate (pdf), Portugal
parliament EU committee (pdf) Danish
parliament
(pdf)
UK: Anti-Terrorism
- Whose Hearts and Minds? Contest 2 in Context (Islamic Human Rights
Commission, link) and see also: United
To Protect Our Rights (IHRC, link) and The
United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering International Terrorism (pdf)
ITALY: MEPs
call for anti-Italian sanctions in press freedom row (euobserver, link).
In a Roll Call Vote the European Parliament agreed that it will
hold a debate and vote on a resolution on press freedom in Italy:
Draft
Resolution
(pdf). The right tried to block the taking of a statement by
the Commission but lost the lost by 284 votes to 268 with 18
abstentions and also lost when trying to take the Resolution
off the agenda by 293 votes to 286 with 18 abstentions. See also:
Brussels
loth to tackle hornets' nest of Italian press dispute (euobserver, link)
Italy: Citizen
patrols hit Italy streets (BBC News, link)
ITALY: Cap Anamur crew acquitted (sueddeutsche.de, link)
On 7 October 2009, a Sicilian court acquitted the former chair
of the human rights organisation Cap Anamur, Elias Bierdel, his
former captain, Stefan Schmidt, and the first officer of the
ship, Wladimir Dschkewitsch. In 2004, the three had rescued 37
refugees off the Italian coast from distress at sea and helped
them to land in Sicily. They were then accused of and prosecuted
for assisting in illegal entry. They faced the possibility of
four years imprisonment and a fine of 400.000 EUR. The organisation
Cap Anamur and the German asylum rights organisation Pro Asyl
had started an international campaign for justice to acquit the
three and have reacted positively to the decision.
From Statewatch News Online April 2007: The trial of Elias Bierdel, Vladimir Dachkevitce and Stefan Schmidt, respectively president of the German NGO Cap Anamur, and captain and first officer on the ship bearing the same name that saved 37 African shipwreck victims between Libya and Lampedusa in June 2004, began on 27 November 2006 in Agrigento (Sicily), in whose province the ship docked on 12 July 2004. The three accused were arrested on arrival and face charges of committing serious offences to favour illegal immigration by rescuing migrants who were at the sea's mercy in a dinghy before transporting them into Italian territorial waters and landing after over two weeks spent at sea awaiting permission to land, amid a shortage of supplies and threats from the migrants that they would jump into the sea, and worsening physical and psychological conditions experienced by both migrants and crew members.
UK-USA: What
lies beneath the extradition of hacker Gary McKinnon to the USA (Hawktalk, link)
France-UK: French
U-turn on Afghan flight deal (Press Association, link)
European Commissioner: Future of internet has dangers
for privacy, Brussels warns (euobserver, link)
Le Monde Diplomatique: Complicit surveillance
and social networking: "Watching me watching you" (link) We’ve all
spent so much time and effort being worried about formal surveillance
– all those street and lobby cameras – that we’re
in danger of forgetting how much we cooperate in surveilling
and being surveilled online
EU: Council of the European Union: Joint
Investigation Teams Manual (27 pages, pdf) and Manual
on cross-border operations (46 pages, pdf)
UK MoD
Manual of Security Volumes 1, 2 and 3 Issue 2, JSP-440, RESTRICTED, 2389 pages, 2001 (Wikileaks,
link): "This significant, previously unpublished document
(classified "RESTRICTED", 2389 pages), is the UK military
protocol for all security and counter-intelligence operations"
and:
"Non-traditional threats: The main threats of this type are posed by investigative journalists, pressure groups, investigation agencies, criminal elements, disaffected staff, dishonest staff and computer hackers. The types of threat from these sources can be categorized in six broad groups: a. Confidentiality. Compromise of politically sensitive information. This threat is presented by: (1) Pressure groups and investigative journalists attempting to obtain sensitive information. (2) Unauthorized disclosure of official information (leaks)..."
UK: Can
national security agencies disclose communications data or ANPR
images to anybody? (Hawktalk, link)
UK: MI5
put union leaders and protesters under surveillance during cold
war (Guardian,
link) by Richard Norton Taylor. This reports on the "official"
history of MI5 by Christopher Andrew - "But the book skirts
over a number of controversies".
UK: Media
for All Conference - The challenge of convergence: Campaign for Press and
Broadcasting Freedom, London, 30-31 October 2009.
UK: Muslim
groups hit out over 'funding with security strings attached' (Guardian, link)
UK: CIA
at work in UK, anti-terror chief tells MPs (Guardian, link)
ITALY-CIA: Italy
seeks jail for US spies in rendition trial (Reuters, link):
"An Italian prosecutor called on Wednesday for 26 Americans, all but one believed to be members of the CIA, to be jailed for between 10 and 13 years each for the kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in 2003.
Public Prosecutor Armando Spataro also asked a Milan court to sentence four Italians, including the former head of Italy's Sismi secret service, to up to 13 years in prison for the abduction of Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr."
European Parliament: Question to the European Commission and
reply: from by Alexander
Alvaro (ALDE), Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (ALDE), Renate Weber
(ALDE), Sophia in 't Veld (ALDE) and Baroness Sarah Ludford (ALDE):
Subject:
US administration, closure of Guantanamo, secret eavesdropping
programmes
EU:
Reclaim
your data from the European police authorities! Campaign to exercise
the right to access European databases (link) and Press
release
(pdf):
"numerous European groups and networks have joined a campaign against the massive storage of personal data by European police authorities. The campaign is supported from different spectrums, such as civil and human rights groups, migration, data protection, antirepression, summit protests and solidarity. The call "Reclaim your data from the European police authorities!" encourages people to exercise their right to access police databases"
UK: Coalition
Against Secret Evidence (link):
"Secret evidence is evidence that is not provided to a defendant or their lawyers during a hearing making it impossible for such persons to know the case against them or prepare a defence. Secret evidence is used in different ways in the UK courts, usually by the government in cases in which it considers “national security” to be an issue. Used as a basis for withholding evidence, for some detainees, this has resulted in over seven years of detention without proper trial or any charge."
UK: House of Commons: Foreign Affairs Committee: Human
Rights Annual Report 2008 (link)
UK: Terror
register comes into force (BBC News, link): Monitoring: Police
will maintain register of offenders - People convicted of terrorism
offences will join a register similar to that used to monitor
sex offenders.
September 2009
AUSTRIA: Thousands
of Migrants Take to Hunger Strikes (Inter Press Service, link) "Human
rights activists in Austria are calling for an overhaul of a
detention system for migrants and asylum seekers they claim breaches
human rights, following the death of a hunger-striking migrant
in police cells."
Italy:
Immigrants 'targeted' by police in Milan (link)
EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE- SISON case: In a landmark judgment:
The
Court of First Instance annuls the Council Acts freezing Jose
Maria Sison's funds (Press release, pdf) and Full-text
of Sison judgment (pdf):
"The national decisions relied upon by the Council in order to freeze the applicant’s funds did not relate either to the instigation of investigations or prosecution or to a conviction for terrorist activity, contrary to the requirements of Community law."
In continuing to maintain the order freezing Mr Sison's funds the Council of the European Union relied on the decisions of Dutch courts but there was no evidence that this resulted in an investigation or legal proceedings:
"That requirement is not satisfied by a decision of a national judicial authority that rules only incidentally and indirectly on the possible involvement of the person concerned in such activity, in relation to a dispute concerning, for example, rights and duties of a civil nature.
The Court finds that the procedures before the Raad van State and the Rechtbank clearly do not involve any ‘conviction’ of Mr Sison, nor do they amount to decisions to ‘instigat[e] … investigations or prosecut[e] for a terrorist act’. In fact, they were solely concerned with the review of the lawfulness of the decision of the Secretary of State for Justice refusing to grant him refugee status and a residence permit in the Netherlands."
For full background see Statewatch's Observatory: "Terrorist" lists: monitoring proscription, designation and asset-freezing
A
Global Detention Project Working Paper: The
Privatization of Immigration Detention: Towards a Global View (link)
EU: French
proposal on asylum cooperation with Turkey and Libya
"France is calling for the
EU to step EU cooperation with Libya and Turkey on asylum issues.
But Libya has a dreadful record on human rights, and is itself
a source of refugees fleeing persecution. It has not signed the
UN Refugee Convention (the Geneva Convention) ... Turkey is a
long-standing major source of refugees fleeing persecution. It
is often found in breach of the European Convention on Human
Rights by the European Court of Human Rights, in particular on
issues of removal of asylum-seekers who face a threat of torture
or other inhuman or degrading treatment in their countries of
origin. Turkey also does not apply the Geneva Convention to refugees
from countries outside Europe - it is almost alone in maintaining
this limitation."
Council document from the: French
Delegation: Migration
situation in the Mediterranean: establishing a partnership with
migrants' countries of origin and of transit, enhancing Member
States' joint maritime operations and finding innovative solutions
for access to asylum procedures (pdf)
EU:
European Commission:
- Annual
report to the Council and the European Parliament on the activities
of the EURODAC Central Unit in 2008 (COM 494, pdf)
- Report
on progress made in developing the European Border Surveillance
System (EUROSUR) (SEC 1625, pdf)
UK: Lecturer
sues after detention in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland -
Jean-Pierre Djimbonge says he was wrongfully arrested during
his UK holiday because he is black (Guardian, link)
EU: Exit-entry: Results
of the data collection exercise (EU doc no: 13267/09, pdf). Three-quarters
of those travellers recorded were: "EU citizen/persons
enjoying the Community right of free movement"
Previous coverage: EU: Exit-entry data collection at the external borders across the Schengen states between 31 August and 6 September 2009: Data collection exercise on entries and exits at the external borders for a short period of time (pdf) The stated aim is the creation of: "a system of electronic recording of entry and exit data". Data is to be collected at all entry points by land, sea and air on third country nationals with and without a visa (as covered by the Commission proposal, see below) and on "EU citizens and persons enjoying the right of free movement". Professor Steve Peers: "It is assumed that the system would not apply to EU citizens, since the Commission’s communication does not address that issue expressly and it is highly doubtful whether including EU citizens within the scope of the system would be compatible with EU free movement law." See: Steve Peers: Report for the European Parliament: Proposed new EU border control systems (pdf) and the Commission's proposal: On an entry/exit system at the external borders of the European Union, facilitation of border crossings for bona fide travellers, and an electronic travel authorisation system (pdf)
EU: FRONTEX report written in cooperation with the EU Joint Situation
Centre (SITCEN) and the IOM: The
impact of the global economic crisis on illegal migration to
the EU
(link, 9 MB, pdf) and from the Council of the European Union:
Strengthening
the operations of the FRONTEX Agency, particularly in the Mediterranean (pdf)
EU: Médecins du Monde: European Observatory on Access
to Healthcare: Access
to healthcare for undocumented migrants in 11 European countries (link): "nearly
70% face obstacles getting health care: administrative difficulties
as well as the cost of consultations and treatments, fear of
being denounced or arrested and fear of discrimination. Some
14% of those polled said they had been refused care for their
latest illness, notably for relatively serious symptoms."
EU: Big
business and security: In its haste to cash-in on the security
boom, the EU has outsourced its research agenda to corporate
self-interest by
Ben Hayes (Guardian LibertyCentral, link)
EU: G6 Interior Ministers + USA to meet in secret in future:
The G6 meetings of Interior Ministers is comprised of France,
Germany, Spain,
Italy, Poland and the UK - the meetings in September 2008 and
March 2009 were also attended by the US Secretary of Homeland
Security. At the G6 meetings in March 2009 it was agreed that:
"No formal conclusions would be issued after meetings."
Since it was set up in 2003 parliaments and civil society groups have called for the agendas of the G6 meetings and a set of its Conclusions to be made public which, with reluctance, it started to do. Now G6 is not to published any Conclusions - though of course plenty of "photo-opportunities" were provided for the media in Berlin.
Also in discussions with the US Secretary of Homeland Security the meeting considered: "ideas for a 'Transatlantic Agenda' between the EU and US on interior issues. Data sharing was the main area discussed, with reference to its implications for collaborative work on organised crime, counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism."
See: UK
parliamentary answer on G6 meeting in Berlin in March 2009 (pdf) and see also:
- "Behind
Closed Doors: the meeting of the G6 Interior Ministers at Heiligendamm", House of Lords EU Committee
report (pdf)
- G6-G8-Prum: Behind
closed doors: policy-making in secret intergovernmental and international
fora
(Statewatch)
- G6: Berlin
keen to use informal chats with EU's big six (euobserver, link)
UK: Drivers'
details sold by DVLA are used in bizarre roadside adverts for
Castrol (Daily
Mail, link)
EU: Regulation on access to EU documents: Confirmation of the
institutional impasse is reflected as the Swedish Council Presidency
puts discussions on hold until the European Parliament makes
it position clear:
"At this stage, the Council’s work on the Commission’s proposal could of course continue at the next IWP meeting. Delegations could aim for agreement on some additional issues. Another alternative would be for the Council to postpone further discussions on the Commission’s proposal until relevant information from the European Parliament is available. The Presidency suggests the second option." See: EU doc no: 12492/09 (pdf)
The next possible discussion could take place in the European Parliament's Civil Liberties (LIBE) on 5-6 October. See also: Proposals for greater openness, transparency and democracy in the EU (pdf) by Professor Steve Peers and See: A quick guide to the "state of play" on amending the Regulation
EU: Major new report from Statewatch and the Transnational
Institute: NeoConOpticon
- The EU Security-Industrial Complex by Ben Hayes (pdf):
"Despite
the often benign intent behind collaborative European ‘research’
into integrated land, air, maritime, space and cyber-surveillance
systems, the EU’s security and R&D policy is coalescing
around a high-tech blueprint for a new kind of security. It envisages
a future world of red zones and green zones; external borders
controlled by military force and internally by a sprawling network
of physical and virtual security checkpoints; public spaces,
micro-states and ‘mega events’ policed by high-tech
surveillance systems and rapid reaction forces; ‘peacekeeping’
and ‘crisis management’ missions that make no operational
distinction between the suburbs of Basra or the Banlieue; and
the increasing integration of defence and national security functions
at home and abroad.
It is not just a case of “sleepwalking into” or “waking
up to” a “surveillance society”, as the UK’s
Information Commissioner famously warned, it feels more like
turning a blind eye to the start of a new kind of arms race,
one in which all the weapons are pointing inwards. Welcome to
the NeoConOpticon."
Press release: Defence industry dominates EU’s security research programme (pdf) and Executive Summary (pdf)
UK: Foreign
national ID cards roll out speeds up (Home Office, link)
Lockerbie: The
Framing of al-Megrahi (London Review of Books, link) by Gareth Peirce
Italy-Libya: EU
turns blind eye to 'inhuman' Italy-Libya pact, watchdog says (euobserver, link).
See: Human Rights Watch report: Pushed
Back, Pushed Around Italy's Forced Return of Boat Migrants and Asylum
Seekers, Libya's Mistreatment of Migrants and Asylum Seekers.
See also: Migrants
Returned To Face Abuse (Inter Press Service, link) and Submission
on May refoulements to Libya to the European Commission and UN
Human Rights Commissioner and EU/Libya:
Full steam ahead, without pausing to think
France: Calais camp: Come to Calais
to protest against the destruction of camps and squats of migrants! (pdf), French (pdf) and see - Police
clear French migrant camp (BBC News, link)
EU: European Commission:
- Commission
Staff Working Document - Mobility partnerships as a tool of the
Global Approach to Migration (SEC 1240, pdf)
- Report
on the operation of the provisions on stamping of the travel
documents of third-country nationals in accordance with Articles
10 and 11 of Regulation (EC) No 562/2006 establishing a Community
Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders
(Schengen Borders Code) (COM 489, pdf)
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council, 21 September 2009: Press
release
(pdf); Background
Note
(pdf), Provisional
Agenda - "B" Points (pdf) and "A"
Points Agenda
(adopted without discussion, pdf) See also: Unaccompanied
Minors
(pdf) and EU
ministers seek to forge joint solution to refugee problem (DW-World DE, link)
UK: Justice
for the North West 10 (link): "Janas Khan is one of the North
West 10 Pakistan students arrested in Brown's "terror raids"
of April this year. He was released from deportation in July
but only to face "administrative removal" for working
more hours than permitted under his student visa."
Malta: Frontex
to take charge of repatriation (Times of Malta, link)
Spain: Amnesty International: Incommunicado detention: Letter
to EU Presidency (pdf) and Report: Out
of the Shadows - Time to end incommunicado detention (pdf). See also Statewatch
analysis: Spain: Report reveals catalogue of abuses, highlighting
the “persistence of ill-treatment and torture” by Yasha Maccanico (pdf)
EU: Security
proposals spell more air travel disruption (Guardian, link): Ban
on liquids at large airports lifted from 2012 - Discrepancies
in rules 'bound to cause confusion'
EU
funding 'Orwellian' artificial intelligence plan to monitor public
for "abnormal behaviour" (Sunday Telegraph, link)
Italy's
migrant crackdown sparks political tensions (Reuters, link)
International Conference: Terrorist lists,
executive powers and human rights (pdf). University Libre de Bruxelles,
20 October 2009. Organised by the European Centre for Constitutional
and Human Rights and International Law and co-sponsored by Statewatch,
Amnesty International, Cordaid and Berghof Peace Support.
EU:
Informal Interior Affairs Ministers Meeting
in the Hague on police cooperation, 1 October 2009: No 1: Identifying
Europol’s Role in a Europe that Protects (pdf), No 2: Joining
forces for the operational implementation of the EU Law Enforcement
Priorities
(pdf) and No 3: Developing
synergies between Internal and External Security (pdf) - see also: Report
on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy
- Providing Security in a Changing World (pdf)
EU:
European Council on Refugees and Exiles: ECRE’s
recommendations for the Stockholm Programme (pdf)
EU:
European Commission: Report on on the
development of the Visa Information System in 2008 (COM 473, pdf)
1.2bn
population of India to be given biometric ID cards (Guardian, link)
UK: Review
of control orders sought (BBC, link): "A wholesale review
of control orders, which restrict the freedoms of some terror
suspects, has been instigated by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of terror laws, will consider
if the system is still "viable" following a ruling
by the House of Lords."
EU: Statewatch analysis: European Parliament:
Abolish 1st [and 2nd] reading secret deals - bring back democracy
“warts and all” (pdf) by Tony Bunyan: "As the
European Parliament starts its new term major questions hang
over the way it is doing its job. In the last parliament over
80% of new measures were agreed in secret “trilogue”
meeting with the Council of the European Union (the 27 governments).
This practice raises fundamental issues of transparency, openness
and democratic accountability."
UK: Presumed
guilty
(Guardian, link) "There is a new phrase in law enforcement
circles, although it is more about enforcing the state's prejudice
than any law. It is the Potential Dangerous Person, or PDP. This
label is given by Northumberland and Cleveland police forces
to someone who is suspected of crimes but who has not been charged,
let alone found guilty of an offence. Under this new designation
they will be targeted as criminals, watched and no doubt harassed."
UK: We
need to repeal 12 years of vile laws attacking our liberty (Guardian, link)
UK: MI6
officer investigated over torture allegation (Guardian, link)
EU: Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA): The
Stockholm Programme: A chance to put fundamental rights protection
right in the centre of the European Agenda (pdf)
EU: EURODAC AND ACCESS TO ITS DATA BY LEAs: Regulation:
concerning the establishment of 'EURODAC' for the comparison
of fingerprints for the effective application of Regulation (EC)
No […/…] [establishing the criteria and mechanisms
for determining the Member State responsible for examining an
application for international protection lodged in one of the
Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person] (COM 342, pdf) French
version
(COM 342, pdf), Proposed
Council Decision on requesting comparisons with EURODAC data
by Member States' law enforcement authorities and Europol for
law enforcement purposes (COM 344, pdf) and DÉCISION
DU CONSEIL relative aux demandes de comparaison avec les données
EURODAC présentées par les services répressifs
des États membres et Europol à des fins répressiveszz (COM 344, pdf)
UK: Home Office: The
Ethics Group: National DNA Database Annual Report (pdf). The report questions
the lawfulness of taking DNA samples from children; says that
the data kept on "ethnicity" (race) is: "not fit
for purpose"; and criticises the government's response to
the European Court of Human Rights ruling that keeping the DNA
of people arrested but not charged was unlawful. . See also:
Police
given assault warning over DNA samples taken from children (Guardian, link)
EU: Proposed new Justice and Home Affairs Working Structure,
if the Lisbon Treaty is adopted: Possible implications
of the Treaty of Lisbon provisions for the JHA working structures (pdf). And Preliminary
draft amendments to the Council's Rules of Procedure (pdf)
See also: A document
published the day after the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty:
European Council (19 and 20 June 2008): Progress
report from the Presidency to the European Council - Preparatory
work in view of the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty (pdf)
EU:
Summary of Impact Assessment: Commission
staff working document accompanying the Communication of the
Commission on the establishment of a Joint EU Resettlement Programme (SEC 1128, pdf) and
Impact
Assessment
(SEC 1127, pdf)
COE-EU: Council of Europe: Draft Resolution
of the Council on a roadmap for strengthening procedural rights
of suspected and accused persons in criminal proceedings (pdf)
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council, 21 September 2009: Provisional
Agenda
(pdf)
EU-USA SWIFT AGREEMENT gives the USA access to all financial
transactions in the EU for the purpose of combating terrorism:
i) European Data Protection Supervisor: Joint
Meeting of LIBE and ECON Committees on EU-US interim agreement
following the entry into force of the new SWIFT architecture (pdf), ii) Belgium:
Control and recommendation procedure initiated with respect to
the company SWIFT (pdf) and iii) Letter to the European
Parliament's Legal Service (pdf): The SWIFT servers are now to
be in the Netherlands and a new one in Switzerland.
- Current agreement: EU-USA "SWIFT" agreement - documentation
EU-AFRICA: Fortress
Europe records “at least” 104 victims in August 2009
(pdf)
Italy-Tunisia: Italy
repeatedly ignores ECtHR orders to suspend expulsions to Tunisia (pdf) and "Ordinary
rendition" in Tunisia and relations with Libya: the Italian
government heaps shame and ridicule onto itself (pdf)
Previous Statewatch coverage: Allowing someone to live or letting them die Italy contravenes European Court of Human Rights instructions by deporting Tunisian (pdf)
EU: Stockholm Programme: UK written
comments on the European Commission's Communication on the Stockholm
Programme
(pdf) and HMG
Briefing for UK Members (pdf)
UK: CRB
looks to ID cards to solve accuracy woes (Register, link) and
ID
cards: A new layer of compulsion by Henry Porter (Guardian, link)
Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission: Report
finds serious human rights concerns for homeless non-UK nationals
in Northern Ireland (Press release, pdf) and No
Home from Home: Homelessness for People with No or Limited Access
to Public Funds (pdf)
EU: Wallstrom:
EU needs a commissioner for citizens (euobserver, link). Previous Commissioner Communications
says on the Regulation for access to EU documents proposal, for
which she was responsible, that:
"There was also the problem of the fact that designating a commissioner for transparency and democracy does not mean that it then automatically transpires. This was particularly so of transparency where she says there is a still a north-south divide on the necessity of being open about documents and how decisions are taken, with Nordic countries traditionally more open. "It has not been easy to move positions on openness and transparency" she says noting that it is "not evident" that the EU should go beyond the current basic rules. In her opinion member states have taken a step back on the issue." (emphasis added)
Long-range
Taser reignites safety debate (New Scientist, link)
August 2009
Council of Europe: Dick
Marty: time for Europe to come clean once and for all over secret
detentions
(CoE, link) and The
Council of Europe's investigation into illegal transfers and
secret detentions in Europe: a chronology (CoE, link)
EU: Meijers Committee: Standing committee of experts on international
immigration, refugee and criminal law: Draft
Framework Decision on the prevention and settlement of conflicts
of exercise of jurisdiction in criminal proceedings; Draft Framework
Decision on the transfer of proceedings in criminal matters (pdf)
EU: The
new European Parliament: too close to business? (Brussels bubble, link)
Greece: UNHCR
orders closure of immigrant reception centre on Greek island (link)
USA: US
Torture Files and Access to Human Rights Information (link)
Secret
Truth: The EU Joint Situation Centre (pdf) Critical report by Jelle van Buuren
of Eurowatch examining the development and activities of the
SITCEN, the EU’s fledgling intelligence agency.
Denmark: Rejected
Iraqi asylum-seekers refused support of lawyers in meetings with
Iraqi investigators (link, Politiken, 20.8.2009) Rejected
Iraqi asylum-seekers, who are to be presented before an Iraqi
investigation delegation in Denmark, are not to be allowed to
have their court-appointed Danish lawyers present at interrogations.
EU: Exit-entry data collection at the external borders across
the Schengen states between 31 August and 6 September 2009:
Data
collection exercise on entries and exits at the external borders
for a short period of time (pdf) The stated aim is the creation
of: "a system of electronic recording of entry and exit
data". Data is to be collected at all entry points by land,
sea and air on third country nationals with and without a visa
(as covered by the Commission proposal, see below) and on "EU
citizens and persons enjoying the right of free movement".
Professor Steve Peers: "It is assumed that the system would not apply to EU citizens, since the Commission’s communication does not address that issue expressly and it is highly doubtful whether including EU citizens within the scope of the system would be compatible with EU free movement law."
See: Steve Peers: Report for the European Parliament: Proposed new EU border control systems (pdf) and the Commission's proposal: On an entry/exit system at the external borders of the European Union, facilitation of border crossings for bona fide travellers, and an electronic travel authorisation system (pdf)
EU:
Regulation on public access to EU documents: When the European
Commission put forward proposals to amend the Regulation on access
to documents in April 2008 it was assumed that the process, involving
codecision by the Council of the European Union and the European
Parliament, would be finalised under the Swedish Council Presidency
by December 2009. However, there is little prospect of any agreement
under the current Swedish Council Presidency as each of the three
institutions have quite different positions on what changes should
be made. Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments: "We
have reached an institutional impasse." See: A
quick guide to the "state of play" on amending the
Regulation
UK: Use of tasers by police forces: Figures
on the reported and recorded uses of tasers by police forces
in England and Wales (pdf) and see: Northumbria
police top league for use of Tasers (Guardian, link)
EU: Automated
searches ("fishing expeditions") may be damaging national
police databases
Updated:
Latest Council positions: Observatory:
the Regulation on access to EU documents: 2008 - 2009
UK: Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Committee: Closing
the Impunity Gap: UK law on genocide (and related crimes) and
redress for torture victims (pdf)
Statewatch analysis: EU agrees rules
for remote computer access by police forces – but fails,
as usual, to mention – the security and intelligence agencies (pdf) by Tony Bunyan:
A quote from Senator Frank Church, who headed a seminal inquiry
in 1975 into the surveillance of the peace movement in the USA
(the “Church Committee report”), seems pertinent:
"If a
dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological
capacity that the intelligence community has given the government
could enable it
to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back
because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance
to the
government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the
reach of government to know. Such is the capacity of technology."
And that was more than 30 years ago.
G8 meetings: Final
Declaration: Rome, 30th May, 2009: G8 ministerial meeting of
Justice and Home Affairs (pdf) and G8
Declaration on Counter Terrorism (Summit: L'Aquila, 8-10 July 2009, pdf).
The role of the little publicised, and even less open to scrutiny,
G8 Roma-Lyon Group is openly referred to: It is reported to have
organised a "ground-breaking" operation on bulk cash
smuggling ("Operation Mantis"); "practical guidance"
on cyberc-crime; charged with measures to:
"identify and promote best practices for expanding biometric identity management practices for travellers and improving security in all modes of transportation"
and on the new subject on the agenda "Urban security" in which "local communities need to be involved in the development of security policies, particularly as it assists in fostering a culture of legality" the Roma-Lyon Group is to investigate the "dynamics of urban security".
UK: 'Racist
bias' blamed for disparity in police DNA database - Profiles
of one in four black children over 10 held (Observer, link)
UK: Police
told to ignore human rights ruling over DNA database (Guardian, link)
Greece: Migrant
woes mounting - Almost 600 Samos immigrants go on hunger strike
over transfers, expulsions (link): "The recent government
policy of moving illegal immigrants to reception centers in northern
Greece before expelling them from the country ran into more trouble
yesterday, as 580 migrants being held on Samos went on hunger
strike to protest the measure."
EU: No
justice in EU extradition system: European arrest warrants are issued
with no regard for the human cost to those caught up in spurious
requests (Guardian, link) by David Cronin. See: European Arrest
Warrant (EAW) Replies
to questionnaire on quantitative information on the practical
operation of the European arrest warrant – Year 2008 (pdf) and Final
report on the fourth round of mutual evaluations - The practical
application of the European Arrest Warrant and corresponding
surrender procedures between Member States (pdf)
UK: New
ID cards are supposed to be 'unforgeable' - but it took our expert
12 minutes to clone one, and programme it with false data (Daily Mail, link)
EU/Africa: Fortress
Europe bulletin for July 2009: Fourteen victims in July
in Egypt, Greece, Turkey and Spain. The Egyptian police shoots
again at the border with Israel: three killed, including two
Somali refugees
UK: High
Court shields database state from blame: No comeback on stigma
of invented £254,000 bad debt (The Register, link): An entrepreneur
whose fledgling business was ruined by a false entry in a court
database has had his claim for compensation rejected by a High
Court judge. The decision could set a broad and troubling precedent,
because Mr Justice Bill Blair QC - brother of the former PM Tony
Blair - ruled that the civil service cannot be found liable for
the damage caused by its record keeping mistakes.
GREECE:
Migrant children marginalized: Reforms aimed at social integration
have not helped thousands born and raised in Greece, experts
say
(link)
UK: ACPO
policy on ANPR: The Management and Use of Automatic Number Plate
Recognition
(Spyblog, link) and ANPR
Manual
(link)
UK: Report by the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights:
Allegations
of UK Complicity in Torture (140 pages, pdf):
"Complicity
in torture is a direct breach of the UK’s international
human rights obligations. In our view, complicity in torture
exists where a state:
- asks a foreign intelligence service known to use torture to
detain and question an individual
- provides information to a foreign intelligence service known
to use torture, enabling that intelligence service to apprehend
an individual
- gives questions to a foreign intelligence service to put to
a detainee who has been, is being or is likely to be tortured
- sends interrogators to question a detainee who is known to
have been tortured by those detaining and interrogating him
- has intelligence personnel present at an interview with a detainee
in a place where he is being, or might have been tortured
- systematically receives information known or thought likely
to have been obtained from detainees subjected to torture."
See: MPs and peers call for inquiry into torture (Guardian, link)
Greece: Zero
Tolerance, Zero Concern (Inter Press Service, link): "Increasing
evidence has surfaced that a zero tolerance policy is denying
due protection to people fleeing hardship, and condemning them
to degrading treatment."
UK: Annual
Report of Interception of Communications Commissioner for 2008 (pdf) The number of
new warrants issued in England and Wales 2008 fell from 1,881
to 1,508 as did the number of "modifications" (for which new warrants
used to be issued). However, the numbers were up in Scotland
with 43 new warrants (previously 28 in 2007) so too were the
number of "modifications" from 367 to 610. The total
number of warrants and "modifications" for England,
Wales and Scotland totalled 7,466 (previously 7,970). In addition
the number of times communications data was accessed was 504,073
slightly down on the previous year (519,260) - the great majority
are carried out by the police or MI5 who both have automated
access to service providers. The UK figures do not include warrants
issued by the Foreign Office to GCHQ and MI6 nor those issued
by the Northern Ireland Secretary of State. See also: Statewatch's
Observatory on telephone-tapping warrants 1937-2008
It is salutary to compare the official reports provided on telephone-tapping and interception in the UK and the USA. In the USA detailed reports with tables including historical data including - unlike in the UK - how many arrests and convictions resulted are provided: Arrests and Convictions Resulting From Intercepts Installed in Calendar Years 1997 Through 2007 (pdf), Authorized Intercepts Granted Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 2519 as Reported in Wiretap Reports for Calendar Years 1997 - 2007 (pdf) and Types of Surveillance Used, Arrests, and Convictions for Intercepts Installed January 1 Through December 31, 2007 (pdf)
EU: House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union report:
Codecision
and national parliamentary scrutiny (pdf)
UK: Internet
firms resist ministers’ plan to spy on every e-mail (Sunday Times, link)
July 2009
EU: UK House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union:
Money
laundering and the financing of terrorism: Volume I: Report (pdf) and Volume
II: Evidence
(pdf)
UK: The
Myth of Policing By Consent by Kevin Blowe (link)
UK: The
image of the ID card for British citizens was officially unveiled
by the Home Secretary today in Manchester and London (Home Office Press release,
link) View
front of card
(link) and Back
of card
(link)
EU-USA "SWIFT": EU bank data move ignored
legal advice
(euobserver, link): "EU member states laid aside the
advice of their own legal experts in cutting MEPs out of talks
on a new bank data-sharing deal with the US. The legal services
of the EU council (the member states' secretariat in Brussels)
in July put forward a confidential paper saying that the European
Parliament should have co-legislative powers on the pact under
articles 95 and 300 of the EU treaty, EUobserver has learned.
But EU foreign ministers on Monday (27 July) opted to give the
Swedish presidency the exclusive right to handle talks, citing
articles 38 and 24 instead."
Council of the European Union: The General Affairs Council agreed
the following at its meeting on 27 July 2009: "EU/United
States - negotiations on payment data: The Council approved guidelines
for negotiations with the United States for an international
agreement to make financial payment messaging data available
to the US Treasury Department in order to prevent terrorism and
terrorist financing ("Swift system") (Council press
release)." European Parliament: Letter
to Commissioner Barrot (French, pdf). See also: EU
wants to share more bank details with the US authorities (EDRI, link)
Background:
- Current agreement:
EU-USA
"SWIFT" agreement - documentation
- EU-US
data sharing causes uproar in Germany (euactiv, link)
- EU
agrees US demands to re-write data protection agreement (pdf)
EU: FRONTEX: European Agency for the Management of Operational
Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States: Annual
Report 2008
(pdf) and Analysis
and Assessment of Frontex' Annual Activity Report 2008 (pdf) which includes
the following conclusion:
"Over the last three years, the issue of attracting adequate human resources in a timely and speedy manner was not resolved. In that respect the Agency obviously lacks attractiveness which gets an additional negative spin by the correction coefficient and the exposure to the riskof exchange rate volatility."
UK: Police
should respect press freedom: Protest is at the heart of any
functioning democracy – and a civil case launched today
aims to protect the media's right to report it (Guardian, link)
UK: Paul Donovan: The
secret trials that besmirch Britain's immigration law (Independent,
link)
UK: South Yorkshire Police Report on the policing of the Climate
Change protest by Kent Police: Strategic
Review: Operation Oasis (Camp for Climate Change) KIngsnorth
Power Station, Kent (pdf). Kingsnorth
protests report criticises 'counterproductive' policing tactics (Guardian, link) Official
review says orders were not communicated properly, leading to
indiscriminate use of stop and search on activists. See also:
Police
at Kingsnorth: hiding badges, searching kids, blasting music
and suffering bee stings - Catalogue of complaints over tactics
used against both protesters and media (Guardian, link)
EU: Council Presidency: Draft
Resolution of the Council on a roadmap for strengthening procedural
rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings (pdf)
CIA-UK: Secrets
of CIA 'ghost flights' to be revealed - Guantánamo detainee's lawyers
hail UK air firm's U-turn that allows rendition case to go to
court (Observer, link)
UK: Bouncers
and parking attendants given police-style powers to issue on-the-spot
fines
(Daily Mail, link)
Letter
from the Eritreans in Tripoli. Tortured in Libya as in Eritrea (Fortress Europe, link)
USA: James B. Rule: Balancing
privacy with better medical data (link): "Among the rare domestic
policy innovations strongly promoted by both the Obama and Bush
administrations is centralization of all Americans' medical records."
UK: The
truth about torture Britain's catalogue of shame, by Ian Cobain (Guardian,
link)
EU: European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS): Intelligent
Transport Systems in road transport: "lack of clarity may
lead to different levels of data protection in Europe" warns
EDPS
(Press release, pdf) and Full-text
of Opinion
(pdf). See also: Big
Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers is backed (Guardian, link) and:
Council of the European Union Conclusions on: Action
Plan for the Deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems in Europe (Press release, pdf)
UK: Home Affairs Select Committee report: The
Macpherson Report—Ten Years On (pdf). On 22 April 1993, Stephen
Lawrence was stabbed to death at a bus stop in South London in
an unprovoked, racist attack. The police were heavily criticised
for their conduct of the investigation and no one has ever been
convicted for the crime. The Macpherson Report, published on
24 February 1999, found that the police investigation into Stephen’s
murder was “marred by a combination of professional incompetence,
institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers.”
UK: Annual
Report of the Chief Surveillance Commissioner (pdf). See: Councils
still breaking surveillance laws• Total of 10,000 snooping
missions carried out (Guardian, link) and Watching
the watchers
(Guardian, link)
UK:
Home Affairs Select Committee: The Cost
of Policing Football Matches (pdf)
At the moment he police who decide how many police should be present (without negotiation with the clubs) and this leads to many instances of a larger poice presence than is necessary and the costs are passed on to the fans:
"We doubt the necessity of deploying up to 150 police officers on top of the hundreds of stewards at an event which has on average 1.2 arrests."
Belgium
to legalise 25,000 immigrants (euactiv, link)
Greece:Fourteen
NGOs and other groups: Public intervention
of NGOs and other groups for refugees and migrants (pdf)
"Within the public debate on migration, we have noticed
many inaccuracies, a large amount of misinformation and a general
approach which is not only one-sided but also exaggerates the
seriousness of the issue , presenting it as a major national
problem. Such an atmosphere allows no space for a calm and analytical
approach to the entire issue, which would aim at shedding light
on all aspects and focusing on substantial measures that could
be taken to solve the problems.
As a result,
the discussion transforms refugees and migrants into targets
rather than what they are: victims of armed conflicts, persecution,
poverty and strict migration policies. Since we perceive the
existing "dialogue" more as a monologue, and since
no opportunity to speak has yet been given to
the representatives of organisations that deal with migrants
and refugees, we see it as our duty to intervene in the debate
in order to inform Greek society about our position on this topic."
and see also: Amnesty International: Amnesty
International condemns forced evictions in Patras (link)
Italy: Public
Security Law 773B denounced as racial law (EveryOne Group, link):
"The so-called security package contains a number of provisions that will deny immigrants the same rights Italian citizens have to basic public services, including access to medical care, besides severely restricting personal liberty and limiting the livelihood of economically or socially disadvantaged foreigners or those in need of humanitarian aid on Italian territory."
Council of Europe: Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg:
Viewpoint: Stop
and searches on ethnic or religious grounds are not effective (link):
“members of minorities are more often that others stopped
by the police, asked for identity papers, questioned and searched.
They are victims of ‘ethnic profiling’, a form of discrimination
which is widespread in today’s Europe. Such methods clash
with agreed human rights standards. They tend also to be counter-productive
as they discourage people from cooperating with police efforts
to detect real crimes.”
European
Civil Liberties Network (ECLN): Selection of new entries on the Noticeboard in July 2009:
- France: Pour l’interdiction immédiate du Flash-ball:
Following the loss of an eye suffered by film-maker Joachim Gatti
after an incident in which he was struck by one of many "flash-balls"
fired by the police against a peaceful demonstration against
an eviction in Montreuil on 7 July 2009, this appeal for an "immediate
ban" of this "non-lethal" public order equipment
introduced in France in 2002 was launched.
- Switzerland: In 2008, it became known that the Swiss police
and secret services were spying and keeping intelligence files
on left-wing activists and politicians. This so-called Fichen
[record] scandal is the second secret surveillance scandal in
Switzerland. In the late 1980s... it has become known that the
Swiss intelligence service continues to spy on activists and
pass on personal data to foreign security agencies, whilst the
investigation into the scandal continues to be postponed.
- Germany: book, published by the German civil liberties group
Komitee für Grundrechte und Demokratie, collects papers
presented at a conference on prison conditions in Germany that
took place September 2008 in Bonn. The central question is the
impact Germany's current prison and crime policies have on the
prison system and the conditions of imprisonment.
- Spain: Report on the application of the Spanish law from 2002
for the illegalisation of political parties deemed to have a
functional and organic relationship with ETA, which has been
used in subsequent elections to illegalise Batasuna and then
other parties or electoral associations that were considered
to be its successors.
- Greece: Open letter sent to the Greek prime minister and interior minister highlighting "the emergency situation that has been developed in Greece with regard to questions of asylum, but also on the evident diffusion and rise of racist violence, of xenophobia and of racist speech against immigrants and asylum seekers, particularly in Athens". (Hellenic League of Human Rights)
Forced
labour and tortures for Eritreans deported from Libya (Fortess Europe, link)
and Italian (link)
UK: DNA
database plans based on 'flawed science', warn experts (Guardian, link)
EU: If
you can't beat 'em … Europe's new tactics in the battle
against the far right (Guardian, link)
UK: Metropolitan
police's 'kettling' tactic challenged in European court
(Guardian, link)
Greece: UNHCR
will not participate in the new asylum procedure in Greece unless
structural changes are made (pdf)
"UNHCR will not participate in the new asylum procedure in Greece unless structural changes are made The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees notes with great concern that the structural changes introduced by the new Presidential Decree 81/2009 do not sufficiently guarantee efficiency and fairness of the refugee status determination procedure in Greece as required by International and European legislation."
EU:
Informal Justice and Home Affairs Ministers meeting to discuss
the Stockholm Programme: Press statements: “Asylum
seekers must receive equal treatment” (link) and Focus
on the citizen at ministerial meeting (link)
Working documents: 1) Developing a Europe that Protects; 2) A Europe based on Responsibility and Solidarity in Immigration and Asylum Matters; 3) Developing a Citizens’ Europe of Law and Justice
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:
"The
Council Presidency, and the European Commission's proposals for
the Stockholm Programme, seek to lay great emphasis on the need
to balance the demands of "security" and the protection
of civil liberties and privacy. A Council Working document for
this meeting says of "paramount importance" is the
need to strike "the right balance between law enforcement
measures and measures to safeguard individual rights, the rule
of law, international protection rules, etc."
This refers to future measures and their implementation. But
what about the swathe of measures which has been put in place
since 2001 which have nearly always placed the demands for security
above freedoms and liberties? If they were serious they would
be proposing a review of all recent laws to restore the proper
balance that is so essential to our democratic future."
- 'EU
Big Brother planning to watch you more closely' (The Local, Swedish News
in English, link)
- Amnesty International: EU: Close
human rights gaps in the Stockholm Programme (link)
- Stop
the Stockholm programme! (link)
UK: House
of Commons debate on ID cards (link)
UK: National
Policing Improvement Agency (link): The National Police
Improvement Agency (NPIA) has released its Annual Report 2008/09.
The report reveals the scale of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition
(ANPR) system that has been constructed in the UK: "The
ANPR infrastructure has the capability to receive and store 50
million ANPR reads per day. The National ANPR Data Centre (NADC)
receives around 8 million reads per day". Also revealed
is who will have access to the data: "In due course, Scottish
forces and PSNI will also be connected to NADC, as will other
national policing and security agencies. These include British
Transport Police, Serious Organised Crime Agency, Her Majesty's
Revenue and Customs and the Security Service." (thanks
to No2id)
European Commission: Proposal
for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 539/2001
listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession
of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals
are exempt from that requirement (pdf): The European Commission presents
plans recommending that Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian citizens
be allowed to travel into the EU without visas from January 2010.
People holding passports from Bosnia, Albania and Kosova will
still have to buy visas.
European
Commission: Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on the right to interpretation
and to translation in criminal proceedings (COM 338, pdf), Summary
of Impact Assessment (SEC 916, pdf) and Impact
Assessment
(SEC 915,pdf)
and EU Council Presidency: Proposal for a Resolution of the Council and of the Governments of the Member States meeting within the Council fostering the implementation by Member States of the right to interpretation and to translation in criminal proceedings (EU doc no: 12116/09, dated 15/7/09, pdf)
Italy/Libya: Submission
on May refoulements to Libya to the European Commission and UN
Human Rights Commissioner
On 16 June 2009, sixteen NGOs submitted a document to the European
Commission and the UN's Human Rights Commissioner that details
the breaches of Italian, EU and international law that were committed
by Italian authorities when migrants on boats that were intercepted
by the Italian navy during patrol operations in international
waters beyond the limits of Libyan territorial waters were returned
to the north African country.
Spain: Annual report by the Coordinadora
para la prevención de la tortura on torture in Spain
European Parliament: Formation of
political groups after the European elections 2009 (Council doc no: 12064/09,pdf)
Political groups: 2009-2014:
- European People's
Party (EPP): 265 MEPs (-23) *
- European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR): 55 MEPs (new group,
previously in EPP, based on UK Conservatives)
- Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD): 30 MEPs (+ 8; replaced
IND/DEM group, includes UKIP (UK) and Lega Nord (Italy)
- Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (PASD): 184
MEPs (-29; the renamed PSE)
- Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE): 84 MEPs
(-16)
- Greens-European Free Alliance (GREEN/EFA): 54 MEPs (+11)
- European United Left-Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL): 35 MEPs (-5)
- Non-attached MEPs: 29 (mostly nationalist, racist, fascist)
**
* The EPP includes groups from the Italian far-right, the National
Alliance and Alessandra Mussolini's Social Alternative - who
have eight MEPs - and merged with Silvio Berlusconi's new centre-right
People of Freedom party.
** The Council observes that: "The number of non-attached
Members will depend in particular on the capacity of the ECR
and EFD groups to attract Members."
See also: European Parliament gets on its feet (euobserver, link) Looks at the composition of the new parliament and likely alliances
EU: Council Presidency: Draft Resolution
of the Council on a roadmap for strengthening procedural rights
of suspected and accused persons in criminal proceedings (pdf)
Newspapers
voice concerns about press freedom (euactiv, link) European newspaper publishers
are calling on the Swedish EU Presidency to protect press freedom
in Europe following recent attempts by the Italian and Czech
governments to restrict journalists' access to wiretapped information,
such as police documents.
UK: The
ID Card dead. Long live the database! (Hawktalk, link)
Police
bulldoze migrant camp in Greek port (link)
EU-STOCKHOLM
PROGRAMME: European Data Protection Supervisor: Opinion
on the Commission's proposals for the Stockholm Programme (pdf):
"The EDPS supports the attention that has been devoted in the Communication to the protection of fundamental rights, and in particular the protection of personal data, as one of the key issues of the future framework for EU action on the questions of citizenship, justice, security, asylum and immigration. He fully endorses the Commission's view that more emphasis should be given to data protection in the areas concerned, and calls for the European Council to follow the same approach when adopting the Stockholm multi-annual programme."
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:
"The
Opinion of the EDPS is, as usual, thoughtful and detailed. However,
the Opinion introduces a strange new interpretation of "free
movement" - one of the four founding freedoms of the EU.
"Free movement" is well understood to mean the right
of people to move around within the EU. The EDPS argues that
"free movement" also comprises "the free movement
of (personal) data". But should it? The "free movement
of personal data" is the invention of the state (EU and
national) and big business. It does not give the people more
rights, quite the reverse because they have little or no control
over the use of their personal data."
EU-STOCKHOLM
PROGRAMME: Council of the European Union: The
External Dimension of Justice and Home Affairs (EU doc no: 11454/09,
pdf) and Contribution
by the UK delegation on the Strategy for the External Dimension
of Justice and Home Affairs (EU doc no: 11413/09, pdf)
EU: European Commission proposal: Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on the right to interpretation
and to translation in criminal proceedings
EU:
Council: Proposal by 16 Member States:Draft
Council Framework Decision on the transfer of proceedings in
criminal matters
and Explanatory
Report: Draft Council Framework Decision on the transfer of proceedings
in criminal matters
UK
Arts and Culture Cancelled, by Order of the Home Office (Manifesto Club, pdf):
"In November 2008, the Home Office introduced a new points-based system (PBS) and visa restrictions, which affected international artists and academics visiting the UK for talks, exhibitions, concerts or residencies. The new points-based system includes harsh new controls on non-EU visitors...
These measures have already had a disastrous effect on UK arts – with cancelled concerts, talks and visits across the UK. The Home Office has largely consulted with larger organisations and stakeholders - groups that are more likely to be able to cope with the bureaucratic hurdles involved. As a result, it has not heard the anger and dismay from the many thousands of smaller organisations and individuals who are being affected."
see also: Stopping culture at our borders by Henry Porter (Guardian, link)
UK:
Reclaim
your DNA from Britain's national DNA databse (link). See: Home
Office DNA consultation (Genewatch, link) and Seminar
on the National DNA Database and Britain's black communities (BMH UK, Black Mental
Health UK, link)
Italy:
Officers
found guilty for teenager's death in Ferrara
EU: "The
massacre continues: 459 deaths in the first six months of 2009"
(Fortress Europe)
UK: Trail
of hacking and deceit under nose of Tory PR chief - Nick Davies
on how the News of the World was involved in illegal activity,
from intercepting phone messages to buying confidential personal
data (Guardian,
link). This story details not just the tapping of mobile phone
calls but also the illegal gathering of personal data from police
computers, British Telecom, the DVLA (driving licences), Inland
Revenue (tax). It highlights yet again the need to legislate
to control the activities of private security groups not just
in the UK but across the EU.
LISBON TREATY: Irish
parliament to get more control over EU laws (European Voice) by
Judith Crosbie:
"both houses of the Irish parliament will be needed to permit the use of a bridging clause that changes decision-making. Under the Lisbon treaty, in EU policy areas where individual countries have a power of veto and the unanimous consent of all states is needed, the rules of decision-making can be changed by the bridging clause to a system of weighted majority voting. The unanimous consent of the member states is required to invoke this use of the bridging clause.
The referendum
bill gives the Irish parliament a degree more control over whether
the Irish government should consent to such a change. The consent
of the Irish parliament would also be required to approve Ireland's
participation in "enhanced co-operation" a mechanism
that allows a group of at least nine member states the possibility
of adopting a law without waiting for the other member states
to participate."
The Irish amendment to its Constitution mirrors the increased
role of parliament on EU matters proposed in Germany following
the judgment by its constitutional court (see below). and:
"The roles of the Irish and German parliaments could prove crucial in the future given that unanimity is needed among member states." (e.voice)
Which begs the question: why have the 25 other national parliaments not got similar powers?
German Constitutional Court ruling on the Lisbon Treaty, raising
the need for national parliaments to play an enhanced role: Full-text
of judgment
(pdf).
IRELAND and the LISBON TREATY: Analysis:
Revisions to the Irish Constitution – Lisbon Treaty (pdf) by Professor Steve
Peers, University of Essex. See also: Twenty-Eighth
Amendment of the Constitution (Treaty of Lisbon) Bill 2009 (link):
"sets out the current provisions of the Irish Constitution dealing with EU membership, and how they would be amended by the proposed constitutional amendment Bill. It comments briefly and factually on the changes in the text of the Constitution which would result if the proposed amendments were adopted. The Bill itself might be amended before its adoption, and of course the amendments would still require public support in a referendum."
EU: Update on new measures: EU-PNR: Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on the use of Passenger Name
Record (PNR) for law enforcement purposes (EU doc no: 5618/09
REV 2, pdf)
and: Draft Council Framework Decision on the transfer of proceedings in criminal matters (EU doc no: 11119/09, pdf) plus Explanatory Report: on the transfer of proceedings in criminal matters (pdf)
GERMANY: Outrage
over Muslim woman killed in court (Guardian, link): "Thousands
of Egyptian mourners marched behind the coffin of the "martyr
of the head scarf" – a pregnant Muslim woman who was
stabbed to death in a Dresden courtroom on Wednesday in front
of her young son."
Council of Europe: Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human
Rights: Many
Roma in Europe are stateless and live outside social protection (CoE, link)
UK: Control
Orders - Abu Rideh granted document to leave the country, decision
welcomed by Amnesty (link)
Hungary: Slipping
Further to the Right (Inter Press Service, link)
Bulgaria: Centre-right
wins landslide victory in Bulgarian elections (euobserver,
link)
EU: Statewatch Analysis: The EU’s
JHA agenda under the Swedish Presidency (pdf) by Professor Steve Peers, University
of Essex.
EU: Statewatch Analysis & Postscript: Statewatch
wins European Ombudsman complaint against the European Commission
over its public register of documents – but it refuses to
comply
(pdf) by Tony Bunyan:
"The Commission’s public register of documents is a travesty. Its rejection of the European Ombudsman’s Recommendations and failure to respond to the European Parliament’s Resolution is an instance of institutional intransigence which, in the interests of basic democratic standards, must not go unchallenged.
EU: European Commission: Annual report
for 2008: Regulation on access to EU documents (pdf)
Czech Republic: Special
aircraft takes expelled Africans from Prague (link)
EU: European Commission: Communication
on guidance for better transposition and application of Directive
2004/38/EC on the right of citizens of the Union and their family
members to move and reside freely within the territory of the
Member States
(COM 313/4, pdf)
USA: 'A
Comedy of Errors': Why It's Time to Get Rid of the So-Called
Terrorist Watch List (Alternet, link)
LISBON TREATY: German Constitutional Court ruling on the Lisbon
Treaty, raising the need for national parliaments to play an
enhanced role: Ruling (link)
EUROPOL: List of 25 non-EU states: Draft
Council Decision determining the list of third States and organisations
with which Europol shall conclude agreements (pdf) and Current
Cooperation and Strategic Agreements (14 states) (Europol, link).
These agreements cover the exchange of personal data between the EU and the non-EU states listed. Each Decision is assessed as to the standards of data protection in the non-EU state. However, these assessments are based on the law in the non-EU state and not on the actual practice (which often differs from the formal law).
EU: Swedish Council Presidency: Draft Council Ministers Agendas:
Draft
Agendas
(pdf) See p20 onwards for Justice and Home Affairs Council
UK: Government
under fire over ID cards (ZDnet, link)
AUSTRIA: Racism
on a Sharp Rise (IPS, link): Mainstream political parties in Austria
must change their approach if a growing anti-immigrant sentiment
stoked by far-right politicians is to be curbed, racism watchdogs
and political analysts say.
UK: The
National Security Strategy of the United Kingdom (64 pages, pdf) and
The
National Security Strategy of the United Kingdom: Update 2009:
Security for the Next Generation (106 pages, pdf)
UK: After
Iraq WMD fiasco, MI6 faces new challenge under Sir John Sawers
(Times, link)
EU-IRAQ: Statewatch analysis: The forgotten casualties of
the war
(pdf) by Max Rowlands. Based on an unreleased Commission report
this article exposes what is happening to an estimated 2 million
refugees living in Syria and Jordan - and the EU’s response
EU-EURODAC: European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS): Eurodac:
how to better ensure asylum seekers' rights in practice? Supervision
Group issues second inspection report (pdf) and Eurodac
Supervision Coordination Group: Second Inspection Report (pdf)
"The answers provided to the questionnaire indicate great differences regarding the content of the information given to the data subject.... the data protection information seems to be diluted into the huge amount of information given to an asylum seeker or to an illegal alien. Besides, it tends to be more general and incomplete.
Although the majority of the Member States refer that the fact that the information contains explanations on the consequences of being fingerprinted, as well as on the exchange of personal data with other countries, there is still a significant number of countries that do not provide such information. Indeed, according to the general assessment made by the DPAs on the quality of the right to information, only a minority considered the information provided is fully in compliance with the Eurodac Regulation meaning “complete”, “clear” or “appropriate”."
June 2009
EU: Auditors
slam EU over Galileo (euactiv, link) and European Court of Auditors:
Special
Report into The management of Galileo (link)
UK: Passport
details to be kept on ID register despite card U-turn - Johnson accused of
pressing ahead compulsory scheme by 'back door' (Guardian, link)
and Home
Secretary affirms commitment to identity cards by accelerating
rollout
(Home Office, link)
UK-G8:
INQUEST has been working with the family of Ian Tomlinson and
their lawyers since his death on 1 April 2009 during the G20
protests. Briefing (pdf)which focuses on
the following issues: Background - The role of the IPCC - Police
planning and operation of the G20 protests - The role of police
in surveillance and intelligence gathering - The role of the
Territorial Support Group - Events following the death of Ian
Tomlinson - Misinformation - The failure to involve the IPCC
immediately after the death - The treatment of Ian Tomlinson’s
family
European Parliament: Ukip, Lega Nord form hard-right
bloc in EU Parliament (euobserver, link). This new far-right group will
have 30 MEPs from seven EU countries drawn from nationalistic
and racist parties.
EU: European Commission proposals: Regulation
establishing an Agency for the operational management of large-scale
IT systems in the
area of freedom, security and justice (COM 293, pdf) and Council
Decision: conferring upon the Agency established by Regulation
XX tasks regarding the operational management of SIS II and VIS
in application of Title VI of the EU Treaty (pdf) plus , Communication:
Legislative
package establishing an Agency for the operational management
of largescale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and
justice
(COM 292, pdf)
Italy: Senate
must stop controversial bill (Amnesty, link): "The draft
law, the so-called “security package”, which was approved
by the Chamber of Deputies on 14 May 2009, includes provisions
which would heavily impinge on the rights of migrants and asylum-seekers
and introduce provisions which appear to be discriminatory and
likely to affect disproportionately Roma and Sinti."
and Letter - Italian Reform Law on Wiretapping (pdf): "European Newspaper Publishers’ Association which is an international non-profit trade association of over 5.200 newspapers from 25 European countries expresses its deep concerns about the pending ‘wiretapping’ law revision which would severely restrict and even forbid publishing of any news obtained from wiretappings."
First Frontex Forced Repatriation Operation: Malta
Today
(link) reported (21 June) that the forced repatriation operation
involving 74 migrants that took place on 18 June was the first
time that Frontex ever coordinated a forced repatriation operation
at sea.
"Even though the migrants were intercepted by an Italian
coast guard boat, the same migrants, that included women and
children, were identified by a Frontex asset that followed the
operation through.” The operation, part of Nautilus IV,
used a German helicopter, the Italian coast guard, and a Libyan
patrol boat.
SPAIN: The National Network for Immigrant Rights (REDI) has requested
a hearing today "immediately " with the Interior Minister
Alfredo Rubalcaba, after the "brutal" attack and deportation
of Senegalese immigrants in Madrid Barajas Airport. The video
can be watched here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV0Cuexukmk
The immigrant organization believes the video, showing these acts broadcasted on the website of Mali, is an example of the inhumane conditions under which Spain carried out the deportations. In an attempt to end these practices, REDI calls for urgent action against what they describe as "violation of human rights." "The video, recorded by a passenger at the airport Barajas, showing how three police officers beat, bound and tied a Senegalese immigrant before being deported has been a great outrage among the organizations defending the rights of immigrants and the Internet community, "he adds.
Spokesperson for the immigration office said these images are "an institutional embarrassment and take us back to the darkest moments of history." "which promoted a society of first, second and third grade citizens, and that violates systematic fundamental rights, "says Sguiglia. REDI announced it is organizing rallies and demonstrations in the coming days to report these events and the injustice, it feels, of Spain'’s treatment of deportees.
UK: Government
faces court battle over £400m contract for hi-tech passports
(Daily Mail, link)
EU: Statewatch
Analysis: EU Lisbon Treaty: Analysis no 4: UK and Irish opt-outs
from EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) law (pdf) prepared by Professor
Steve Peers, University of Essex: The UK, Ireland (and Denmark)
"have opt-outs from the entire area of EU Justice and Home Affairs law...
The changes to EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) law (which concerns immigration and asylum, civil law, policing and criminal law) in the Lisbon Treaty are more far-reaching than the changes which that Treaty would make to any other areas of EU law."
UK: Home Affairs Select Committee report: Policing
of the G20 Protests (pdf)
Italian
"Extraordinary Rendition" Victim Still Held In Morocco
Based On Tortured Confession (ACLU, link):
"Human rights groups ask two U.N. Special Rapporteurs to investigate the case of Abou Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen and victim of the CIA's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program who is currently held in a Moroccan prison based on a confession coerced from him through torture."
Ethnic
profiling tarnishes the EU
- Relying on race when deciding who to stop, search or detain
is illegal and ineffective – but European police continue
to do it (Guardian, link)
EU
plans giant IT network for "freedom, security and justice" (Register, link) and
Commission press release: The setting up
of an Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT
systems proposed by the Commission (pdf)
EU: STOCKHOLM PROGRAMME: Work
programme for the Swedish Presidency of the EU 1 July - 31 December
2009
(see p 8: pdf) and Preparing
the Stockholm Programme - Organisation of discussions in the
Council
(pdf). The latter document refers to the "stakeholder"
(EU officals ansd academics) Bruges Conference (pdf) which, from this
lengthy report, threw up few original ideas but did include:
Stefano RODOTA, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Fundamental Rights Agency, ”Promoting fundamental rights as the core of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice”, former Member of the Camera dei Deputati in Italy:
"highlighted the problems currently dealt with. He stated that the indivisibility of rights has resulted in a weaker status being given to the social rights. Also, the fundamental rights have in a way been polluted and exploited in the fight against terrorism. There are today restrictions far beyond the need to fight terrorism. All of this is due to the lack of filter of the requests from the US. An example of this is PNR and data protection and the fact that the US refused the equivalent protection of European citizens compared to US citizens.
According to Mr. Rodota the EU must refuse the “securitanism resulting in a digital tsunami” that will lead to a future where there will be a digital record on everything."
UK: Blair
Peach death secrecy review (Guardian, link)
EU: Tony Bunyan's "View from the EU" column in the
Guardian looks at: Europe's
race to the right: The results of the European elections look
certain to cement the centre right and far right's sway over
politics in Europe (link):
"EU institutions
and governments regularly repeat the mantra that we all "share
common values", as if the project has unchanging standards
and principles, but do we?"
UK:
CAMPACC, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Statewatch, Basque
Solidarity Campaign: Seminars: The
Basque Country and Northern Ireland: Self-Determination, Proscription
and Human Rights in the EU (pdf)
EU: Swedish Council Presidency: Work
programme for the Swedish Presidency of the EU 1 July - 31 December
2009
(pdf) See also: Sweden
to push for more transparent EU migration rules (euobserver, link):
"[Swedish Europe Minister] Ms Malmstrom...said the commission's proposals in this area, put forward earlier this month, were "a good starting point" for discussions, although they have been strong criticised by some civil liberties group for potentially leading to a "surveillance society.
But Ms Malmstrom admitted that it will be a challenge to strike the right balance between "the more repressive measures taken under police cooperation" and safeguarding civil rights."
Updated: European Parliament: EU parliament sees birth
of new right-wing group (euobserver, link):
'Realignment of the right': London School of Economics professor Simon Hix said the European Conservatives and Reformists could create a strongly pro-free market bloc with EPP-ED and ALDE in the parliament instead of concentrating on Lisbon. The new bloc would have over 400 out of 736 MEPs, potentially putting the previous parliament alliance of Christian Democrats and Socialists out of business."
Conservative MEPs form new group: The UK's Conservative MEPs have formed a new "anti-federalist" European Parliament bloc (BBC News, link). The new European Conservatives and Reformists Group includes 55 MEPs from across eight member states.
UK: Police and protests:
Video
shows surveillance protesters bundled to ground by police - Women
arrested for challenging officer with no badge number
and Predatory
policing: As my arrest and imprisonment demonstrates, the preventative
policing model is a licence to harass legitimate protesters
(Guardian, links)
EU: EU
security plans threaten freedom, says rights expert (Irish
Times, link)
EU: European Commission: Internet
of Things - An action plan for Europe (pdf) and Internet
governance: the next steps (pdf)
EU: IRELAND-LISBON: Lisbon Treaty guarantees
for Ireland
(pdf) Analysis by Professor Steve Peers, University of Essex
"new
laws needed to legitimise the system would take "a number
of years" to pass, and that by that time technology will
"hopefully have caught up with law enforcement requirements."
Background: LSE
report: Briefing on the Interception Modernisation Programme (pdf)
EU: European Council, Brussels, 18-19 June 2009: Draft
Council Conclusions (pdf)
UK-TORTURE: How
UK's torture policy was traced back up political ladder•
MI5 officer's testimony led to police investigation - Report
shows Blair knew of interrogation guidelines (Guardian, link). See too: Breaking
the rules on tortureThe details of the government's post-9/11
torture policy are shocking. A full investigation must be carried
out
(Guardian, link) by Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve.
Backround: Intelligence and Security Committee: The Handling of Detainees by UK Intelligence Personnel in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq (2005, pdf)
EU-UK: Regulation on access to EU documents: House of Lords Select
Committee on the European Union issues critical report on the
European Commission's proposals and the position of the UK government:
Access
to EU Documents (pdf). Including:
"Q6 Chairman: Just to take a specific example, we have referred elsewhere to the publication on Statewatch of one of the Presidency's working documents, of the type which this Committee rarely but occasionally sees, and the commentary by Professor Steve Peers. Do you regard that as helpful or unhelpful to the progression of such matters?
Caroline Flint (Minister for Europe): I do not think it is very helpful."
Commenting Lord Mance, Chairman of the Lords EU Sub-Committee on Law and Institutions, said:
"Providing public access to documents is a key element in securing the accountability of European Institutions to European citizens. "We support attempts to make the EU more open to public scrutiny and hope the Commission use this opportunity to improve public access to documents, not limit it further. For that reason we think it is important that access to draft documents is maintained. It is not appropriate for the European Commission to establish arbitrary definitions of the point where a document is 'formally transmitted' in order to maintain space for policy development.
"We are concerned that the UK Government are seeking greater restrictions on the publication of legal advice in respect of legislation, and of negotiating positions adopted by Member States. Legislation should take place in as open an environment as possible."
UK: House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution: Analysis
of the Government’s response to Surveillance: Citizens and
the State
(pdf). A Press release says:
"The House of Lords Constitution Committee has expressed disappointment at the government's response to its report on surveillance and privacy. The report in February recommended more powers for the Information Commissioner, in particular to allow monitoring of the private sector, and greater use of privacy impact assessments. Lord Goodlad, chairman of the Lords Constitution Committee, said: "We are disappointed the government has failed to recognise the fundamental importance of privacy in the relationship between individuals and the state," he said.... In its response to the report, the government rejected proposals for a review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which allows authorities to intercept communications, as well as rejecting calls for a Joint Committee on surveillance and data powers and for more information to be provided to citizens on surveillance issues. And the committee said the government failed to address recommendations on citizen-oriented identification systems that could give individuals control over identification and authentication data."
See: Government not listening on surveillance, say Lords (Computing, link)
UK: LORD CARLILE Annual report for 2008: Report
on the operation in 2008 of the terrorism act 2000 and of part
1 of the terrorism act 2006
by Lord Carlile QC (pdf). See: Terror watchdog
in search warning (BBC News, link) "Police have been advised
to use the anti-terrorism powers sparingly The UK's terror law
watchdog says people are being stopped and searched to racially
balance official figures."
Update: Home Office answers Lord Carlile's report, reassures photographers (British Journal of Photography, link)
EU: Stockholm programme:
The
lives of ... all of us (Daily Mail, link)
Updated: Full-text of assurances: EU: LISBON TREATY-IRELAND:
Draft
text of assurances (5MB, pdf). Some uncertainty remains as other
EU governments want to be sure that any promises do not re-open
the ratification process and Irish Foreign Minister Martin said:
"he hoped that the guarantees, included in a draft agreement,
would be tacked on to a future treaty...." See also:
Uncertainty
over legal format of Irish Lisbon guarantees (euobserver, link)
Updated: Statewatch's Observatory on "Terrorist"
lists: monitoring proscription, designation and asset-freezing
- June 2009 - EU renews terrorist list - Common Position 2009/468/CFSP of 15 June 2009
- June 2009 - Court of First Instance follows Kadi and annuls annulled the listing of Omar Mohammed Othman (aka Abu Qatada) (Court Press release, 11.6.09): Despite the ruling it is explicitly assumed that the Council will now re-list him following the new procedures introduced in the light of Kadi (see further below). The full text of the judgment is available here.
- June 2009 - Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity: Charitable Giving and the "War on Terrorism Financing": The American Civil Liberties Union has released a comprehensive report documenting the consequence of U.S. government actions on American Muslims' exercise of their right to profess and practice their religion through charitable giving. The ACLU's research shows that U.S. terrorism financing policies and practices are seriously undermining American Muslims' protected constitutional liberties and violating their fundamental human rights to freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom from discrimination.
N IRELAND: Romanian
race attack victims housed for own safety in Belfast sports centreUp
to 20 families moved by police after rally in support of eastern
Europeans targeted by youths throwing bottles (Guardian, link)
France: Criminalising
solidarity: FIDH report The observatory for the protection of human rights
defenders (FIDH -OMCT) has published a research report on the
obstacles faced by defenders of the rights of migrants in France
entitled "Crime of solidarity": stigmatisation, repression
and intimidation of defenders of the rights of migrants.
Is a State that enjoys solid democratic and proven institutions
a guarantee of security and tranquility for human rights defenders
working there? Alerted by the Ligue française des droits
de l'Homme (LDH), the observatory gave a mandate to an international
research mission responsible for examining the conditions of
the exercise of the defence of the rights of migrants in France.
The delegation visited France from 17 to 25 March 2009.
The research report's conclusions are worrying: excesses connected
to the "culture" of results, targets that include figures
for the questioning of "aiders", a permanent pressure
on people who are in contact with foreigners, which is enabled
by a legislation that is not precise and stygmatising. The cases
gathered of arrests, or charges brought, of people who have lent
assistance to migrants make it possible to conclude that, in
France, there is a climate that is unfavourable for the defence
of the rights of foreigners that can only be part of a strong
dissuasive pressure. This flagrantly contravenes the UN Declaration
on human rights defenders, and the Observatory deems it necessary
to seize, apart from the French institutions concerned, the authorities
and mechanisms for the protection of human rights at an international
and European level. [Statewatch translation of the introduction
to the report by FIDH]
UK: Abandon
ID cards: The attempt to justify the ID card scheme on
the grounds of the risk of terrorism is not sustainable –
we simply don't need it
(Guardian, link) and ID
cards 'will not protect UK against terrorism': Identity cards
are pushing Britain towards a "Kafkaesque" society
and will do nothing to protect the UK against terrorism, a retired
Law Lord will warn (Daily Telegraph, link)
GERMANY: Quietly
Arming Conflicts (Inter Presss Service, link)
European Council (18-19 June 2009: EU Prime Ministers): Draft
Council Conclusions (pdf) including on: "Illegal immigration
20. Recent events underline the urgency of strengthening efforts
to prevent and combat illegal immigration in an efficient manner
at the EU Southern maritime borders and thus prevent future human
tragedies. A genuine European response guided by both firmness
and solidarity in line with the European Pact on Immigration
and Asylum and the Global Approach to Migration is essential.
Their implementation must be stepped up. All activities in the
Western Mediterranean region and at the Eastern and South-Eastern
borders need to continue.
21. The European Council calls for significant strengthening of concrete cooperation with the main countries of origin and transit in managing migration, border control, return and readmission, the reception of asylum seekers and protection of those in need of international protection, including cooperation with relevant international organizations active in those countries. The European Council urges the Council to take this fully into account when preparing the new multi-annual framework programme in the area of Freedom, Justice and Security.
European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE): Statement to the European Council: Respect the right to seek asylum in Europe (pdf)
UK: SOAS
(School for Oriental and African Studies, London) occupation:
chaos the better virtue (link): "SOAS where around thirty people
are occupying the director's office in support of those cleaners
who were arrested by immigration police on Friday. The cleaners,
who work for private company ISS, were called into a dawn meeting
by management on Friday morning. The police, who were laying
in wait for them, swooped out and seized nine cleaners - my understanding
is that six have now been deported and three others are under
threat of deportation, including a woman who is six month's pregnant
and a sick woman in her sixties who had a heart attack whilst
in custody."
The
Dawning of the Biometric Age: Say goodbye to PINs and photo IDs.
Say hello to digital fingerprints and iris scans—and to
new opportunities for security businesses (Business Week, link) and Is
the rise of the digital ID inevitable? As biometrics gain sway,
not everyone sees them as a force for good (Independent,
link)
PI
and Free Expression Groups Call for Limits on Surveillance (PI, link)
Americans
seek international database to carry iris, palm and finger prints (Guardian, link). This article, and
a number of others refer to the "International Information
Consortium", formed ten years ago by the USA, UK, Australia
and Canada - all in the USA-UK intelligence network set up in
1947. Police Review reports that the Consortium met at
Bramshill Police College for its annual conference in May where
it discussed international access to DNA databases.
UK-EU: Racist
rants of elected BNP man, Andrew Brons, revealedYorkshire MEP
Andrew Brons drew up some of the National Front's most inflammatory
policies (Observer, link)
EU: European Commission: Tracking
method for monitoring the implementation of the European Pact
on Immigration and Asylum (COM 266 2009, pdf)
EU: Council discussions: "State of play": Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on combating the sexual abuse,
sexual exploitation of children and child-pornography, repealing
Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA - State of play and: Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on preventing and combating
trafficking in human beings, and protecting victims, repealing
Framework Decision 2002/629/JHA - State of play (EU doc no: 9892/09,
pdf)
UK: The
BNP's success reflects the new racism of our political culture (IRR News Service, link)
UK: Metropolitan
police officers flushed my head in toilet, says suspect: Solicitors
for five held in drug raids allege torture - Six officers face
IPCC over waterboarding claims (Guardian, link)
ITALY-LIBYA: Italy's
immigration deal with Libya sparks uproar (euactiv, link)
UK-N IRELAND: Guilty
until proven innocent (Between the Lines, Paul Donovan's blog, link)
"The arrests of 12 Pakistani students in April on suspicion of terrorism hit the news headlines. Two weeks later there was less fanfare as all were released without charge. The pattern of arresting people under anti-terror legislation and then releasing without charge is familiar to Irish people who experienced the tactic during the conflict in the North."
European Court of Justice: Court of First instance has followed
Kadi and annulled the listing of Othman/Abu Qatada: Press
release
(pdf) It is explicitly assumed that the Council will however
now re-list him following a better procedure. Background: See
Statewatch's Observatory
on "Terrorist" lists
Malta: Frontex
to help in migrants' return - Justice Ministers to discuss EC
proposals today (Times of Malta, link)
EU: European Commission: Proposals for
the Stockholm Programme (pdf), German (pdf) French (pdf):
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments: "What stands out are the proposals related to the Future Group report. A promise to balance better data protection and EU standards for "Privacy Enhancing Technology" with the law enforcement agencies demands for access to all information and communications. An "information system architecture" to bring about the sharing of all data across the EU. The use of "security technologies" to harness the "digital tsunami" to gather through mass surveillance personal data on peoples' everyday activities through public-private partnerships.
What is new is the clear aim of creating the surveillance society and the database state. Future generations, for whom this will be a fully developed reality, will look back at this era and righlty ask, why did you not act to stop it."
See: Statewatch's Observatory on The Stockholm Programme - The Shape of Things to Come
EU: European Commission: The Hague Programme:
- Communication:
An evaluation of the Hague Programme and Action Plan (COM 263, pdf)
- An
evaluation of the Hague Programme and Action Plan (SEC 765, pdf)
- An
extended report on the evaluation of the Hague Programme (SEC 766, pdf)
- General
overview of instruments and deadlines provided in the Hague Programme
and Action Plan in the fields of justice, freedom and security
:Institutional Scoreboard (SEC 767,pdf)
EU: European Arrest Warrant (EAW): Replies
to questionnaire on quantitative information on the practical
operation of the European arrest warrant – Year 2008 (pdf) Detailed country
by country figures.
Previous coverage: EU: EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT: Final report on the fourth round of mutual evaluations - The practical application of the European Arrest Warrant and corresponding surrender procedures between Member States (pdf)
UK: Terror
suspects win legal battle (BBC News, link): "It is a major
decision about the legality of using secret evidence. Three terror
suspects on control orders have unanimously won a major ruling
over the use of secret evidence. Nine Law Lords allowed the men's
appeals after they had argued they did not know what they were
accused of."
- House
of Lords appeal: Full-text of judgment (pdf)
- Justice
report: Secret Evidence (236 pages, pdf)
- Justice
Briefing
(pdf)
EU: Tony Bunyan's "View from the EU" column looks at:
Watching
the computers: Function creep allows EU states to use intrusive
remote computer searches to target any crime, however minor (Guardian, link): "Journalists,
lawyers and activists beware – the state can watch what
you are doing on your computer. We all know that the state can
monitor our phone calls, faxes, internet usage, travel movements,
financial transactions and soon our health records too. But what
about when we put pen to paper, or rather fingers on the keyboard?"
European Civil Liberties Network (ECLN): Oppose the “Stockholm
Programme”
The ECLN has published a Statement calling on civil society groups and individuals to voice their opinions on the EU's Stockholm programme and work towards a democratic Europe. The “Stockholm Programme” sets the agenda for EU justice and home affairs and internal security policy from 2010 to 2014 and will extend militarised border controls, discriminatory immigration policies, mandatory and proactive surveillance regimes and an increasingly aggressive external security and defence policy. The ECLN believes these policies constitute an attack on civil liberties and human rights. It calls for active civil society engagement and opposition to dangerous authoritarian tendencies within the EU.
- ECLN
Statement: Oppose the “Stockholm Programme” (English)
- ECLN
Statement - Oppose the “Stockholm Programme” (German)
- ECLN
Statement - Oppose the “Stockholm Programme” (Spanish)
- ECLN
Statement - Oppose the “Stockholm Programme” (Italian)
- ECLN
Statement - Oppose the “Stockholm Programme” (Dutch)
- ECLN
Home page
- See also Statewatch's Observatory on the Stockholm Programme:
The Shape of Things to Come
Germany: Courts
clear police of charges for black deaths in custody
Italy: White
book on the Fini-Giovanardi (drug) law The anti-prohibitionist association Fuoriluogo,
in cooperation with Associazione Antigone (which works on the
penal system and prisons) and La società della ragione,
has published a "white book on the Fini-Giovanardi law",
to illustrate and comment the effects of law 49/2006 on drugs
on the penal system, administrative punishment and on the administration
of justice and the prison system.
Germany: Force-feedings
emetics: inhumane, cruel, and racist, but unpunished
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council Luxembourg: Press
release for 4-5 June (pdf)
Main "B" Point Agenda (pdf), "A"
Points Agenda
(adopted without debate, pdf). Among the documents circulated
were:
- EU
Counter-Terrorism Coordinator: Report on the implementation of
the Strategy and Action Plan to Combat Terrorism
- EU
Counter-Terrorism Coordinator: Implementation of the Strategy
and Action Plan to Combat Terrorism
- EU
Counter-Terrorism Coordinator: EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy
- discussion paper
The launch of
SIS II is in a mess which has still not been sorted out for the
Justice and Home Affairs Minister have agreed that the "SIS
1+ RE scenario" is put in place until this is sorted out.
The first three documents set out the problems and are followed
by the Council "Conclusions" adopted on 4 June 2009:
- Report
on the further direction of SIS II (highly detailed 57 pages report)
- Report
of the SIS II Task Force
- The
enhanced management principles for SIS II
- Council
conclusions on the further direction of SIS II
Europol is now to handle the use of personal data gathered by the "Check the Web" project - which up to now has had no legal basis and has been run by an EU Member State. "Check the Web" was set up to track down terrorist and child pornography websites, however, there are now suggestions that the same technology could be used against "other crimes": Report to the Council on the use of personal data in the Check the Web project
See also: ECRE: Ministers must ensure respect for the right to seek asylum in Europe (pdf)
The
Electronic Police State: 2008 National Rankings (pdf) 52 states and
their rankings: 1. China; 2. North Korea; 3. Belarus; 4. Russia;
5. United Kingdom: England & Wales; 6. United States of America;
7. Singapore; 8. Israel; 9. France; 10.Germany.
CoE: European Commission against Racism and Intolerance: Annual
report
(pdf)
IRELAND: Complaint
to European Commission over Irish Interception Laws (Digital Rights Ireland,
link)
UK: Big
Brother HAS gone too far ... and that's an ex-spy chief talking
(Daily Mail, link)
GREECE: Greece
Cannot Take Very Much More, Analysis by Apostolis Fotiadis
(Inter Press Service, link): ATHENS, Jun 1 (IPS) - United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres has asked
the European Commission to call a meeting between the agency
and countries around the Mediterranean to work out a joint strategy
to deal with irregular migration.
But while Italy is being internationally chastised for the refoulement of refugees that effectively annuls the country's responsibilities arising from international treaties, most notably the Geneva convention, neighbouring Greece is building up state-sponsored persecution of irregular migration that has gone largely unnoticed.
UK: Man
who died after police restraint 'covered with injuries'
(Guardian, link)
EU: Tony Bunyan's "View from the EU" column looks at
the: Stockholm Programme: The
surveillance society is an EU-wide issue (Guardian Libertycentral,
link)
EU: ECRE: Memorandum to the JHA Council of 4/5 June 2009: Guaranteeing
refugee protection and safeguarding respect for fundamental rights (pdf)
UK: Justice: The
false promise of assurances against torture (pdf) by Eric Metcalfe:
"This article examines the British government’s
use of assurances against ill-treatment in cases involving deportation
on national security grounds to countries known for their use
of torture. It considers the history of assurances in the context
of extradition and deportation, examines the relevant Strasbourg
case-law, then considers the various memoranda of understanding
negotiated by the government with various North African and Middle
Eastern countries and analyses the approach of the UK courts
to those
assurances."
May 2009
Amnesty International Annual Report: Europe
and central Asia (link):
"Europe too often lacked political leadership to ensure the protection of human rights in the region, with many of its states also lacking the political will to live up to their obligations."
UK: How
MI5 blackmails British Muslims: 'Work for us or we will say you
are a terrorist' (Independent, link) and MI5:
leave young Muslims alone: MI5's harassment of Muslim students
is not exposing terrorists – it's just alienating innocent
people
(Guardian, link)
UK: Tortured
while MI5 left the room: Briton's claim after 7/7 attacks (Guardian, link)
EU: European Stability Initiative (ESI) regarding "visa-free"
travel for Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro:
Scorecard
– Schengen "White List" Conditions (pdf) and ESI
website
(link). "Based on expert visits and internal assessments
by the European Commission of the implementation of the visa
liberalisation roadmaps by Western Balkan countries (18 May 2009)".
UK: Britain's
Secretive Police Force: Politicising the Policing of Public Expression
in an Era of Economic Change (pdf): NETCU, WECTU and NPOIU: The National
Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, The Welsh Extremism and
Counter-Terrorism Unit (Uned Atal Terfysgaeth ac Eithafiaeth
Cymru), The National Public Order Intelligence Unit
EU:
Access
to EU documents - Germany and Ireland vote for secrecy even after
decision is taken (pdf). In response to a "confirmatory application"
(appeal against a refusal of access) to the Council of the European
Union (27 governments) concerning the Sanctions Directive the
German and Irish government oppose the release of a document
because it shows the positions of EU governments - and they want
to invoke the power under Article 4.3 that access to EU documents
can be refused even after a measure has been adopted. The majority
of governments opposed this view.
UK: University
lecturers may boycott immigration 'snooper' rules on foreign
students
(Guardian, link) and Previous: UK: We
won't collude with efforts to use the academy to police immigration
EU: Schengen Information System (SIS): 2008 figures: Staff
shortage and Workload SIS II (EU doc no: 5171/09, pdf). The number
of "Hits" in 2008 is on p5; the number of entries under
Articles 95-99 on people is on page 10 and the number of entries
on "Objects" under Article 100 (inc. over 20 million
ID documents) p11.
The top five states for the total entries on people are Italy (436,000), Germany (130,000), France (109,000), Hungary (70,000) and Spain (70,000) - which account for almost 80 per cent of the total entries on individuals.
UK: Fury
as Commons denied DNA vote - Home secretary bids to bypass Commons
vote on database (Observer, link)
The
technology of surveillance (BBC News, link)
EU: ACCESS TO EU DOCUMENTS REGULATION:
2008 Annual Report from the Council of the European Union (pdf)
Updated: UK: Decision on police surveillance: Full-text
of Court of Appeal judgment (link), Arms
trade campaigners welcome court's judgment on unwarranted police
surveillance and storage of photos (CAAT, link), Let's
stay vigilant against Big Brother (Guardian, link) and The
man who beat Big Brother Britain: Police told they can't keep
pictures of arms trade activist (Daily Mail, link) which, after the
judgment, quotes:
"Chief
Superintendent Ian Thomas, who runs the Met's public order branch,
[who] said: 'Overt photography helps us build a picture of who
is involved in organising any potential disorder or crime."
EU-KENYA:
Meijers Committee: Comment on the
agreement between the EU and Kenya on the transfer of persons
suspected of piracy to Kenya (pdf)
UK: Intelligence and Security Committee: Could
7/7 Have Been Prevented? Review of the Intelligence on the London
Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005 (pdf)
UK:
ContactPoint
goes live despite security fears (Register, link):
"The Government has announced plans to push ahead with the next phase in launch of a controversial child protection database, despite ongoing concerns about the security of data held on the system. The delayed ContactPoint system, which is due to include names and addresses on every child under 18 in England, will be accessed by frontline care workers in real-life trials for the first time from this Monday."
SURVEILLANCE
STATES: Government spying, civil liberties and the "special
relationship": The American Civil Liberties Union, PEN American
Center and Statewatch invite you to join experts from the
US and UK at Garden Court Chambers on 31 May 2009 for a discussion
of mass surveillance, its implications, and challenges to government
policy and practice. The panel will be moderated by Carla Ferstman,
director of REDRESS, a human rights organisation that helps torture
survivors obtain justice and reparation.
The panel will feature: JAMEEL JAFFER, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)’s National Security Project; PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE is a fellow at the Century Foundation, a progressive policy think tank, and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Slate, and other publications on issues of national security, civil liberties, human rights, and the rule of law; BEN HAYES, associate director of Statewatch; LARRY SIEMS, director of PEN American Center’s Freedom to Write program, which defends writers facing persecution around the world, and PEN’s Campaign for Core Freedoms, a major initiative to turn back new threats to freedom of expression in the United States.
Date: Sunday,
31 May 2009: Time: 5:00pm - 6:30pm. Location: Garden Court Chambers,
57- 60 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3LS. See
flyer for more information
EU:
Tony Bunyan's "View from the EU" column looks at the
Current
state of play of proposed changes to the Regulation on access
to EU documents (Guardian Libertycentral, link)
UK-EU-USA: Two
Instruments bringing into force in the UK the EU-USA agreements
on extradition and mutual assistance (pdf). Although agreed back in 2004
it has taken over five years for each EU government and the USA
to ratify these two agreements - the process is nearly complete.
The agreement on extradition is controversial and that on, seemingly
straightforward, "mutual assistance" is far-reaching
in terms of police cooperation and the exchange of personal data.
This is being adopted in the UK as an international Treaty without
discussion - and the UK is formally committed to enacting it
as a result of the EU-US agreement.
Statewatch background coverage: EU/US agreement on extradition and mutual assistance and EU-USA agreements - the drafts on the table
UK: House of Commons Home Affairs Committee: Vol
I: The Trade in Human Beings: Human Trafficking in the UK (pdf) and Oral
and written evidence Volume II (pdf)
Statewatch publication: Border wars
and asylum crimes by Frances Webber (38 pages, pdf)
"When the pamphlet ‘Crimes of Arrival’ was written, in 1995, the title was a metaphor for the way the British government, in common with other European governments, treated migrants and especially, asylum seekers. Now, a decade on, that title describes a literal truth....
There is a frightening continuity between the treatment of asylum claimants and that of terrorist suspects. In the name of the defence of our way of life and our enlightenment values from attack by terrorists or by poor migrants, that way of life is being destroyed by creeping authoritarianism, and those values – amongst which the most important is the universality of human rights – betrayed."
See also: Crimes of arrival: immigrants and asylum-seekers in the new Europe (12 pages, 1995, pdf)
To order hard-copy see: Statewatch Publications
DATA PROTECTION: Report for the Information Commissioner: Press
release
(pdf) and Full
report
(pdf)
UK:
Evidence
to the Joint Committee on Human Rights concerning the provisions
of the Policing and Crime Bill that relate to the use and retention
of DNA and CCTV/APNR images (pdf) by Dr Chris Pounder:
"This evidence is limited to commentary on New Clause 33 (NC33) which provides for wide ranging powers in relation to the use and retention of personal data, in particular CCTV and Automated Number Plate Readers (ANPR) images, and personal data derived from DNA samples. The Government has explained that the clause is its response following the loss of its ECHR case in S and Marper v The United Kingdom.... The definition of “photograph to include a moving image” in section 64B(10) could provide a statutory basis for the retention or use of CCTV images as part of ACPO’s National CCTV Strategy."
EU-USA: Obama
Administration To Revive Fatally Flawed Military Commissions:
Decision Strikes Blow To Due Process And Rule Of Law (ACLU, link). See also
from the Council of the European Union: Draft
Conclusions of the Council and of the representatives of the
Governments of the Member States on the closure of the Guantanamo
Bay Detention Centre (dated 14 May 2009, pdf) which says: "Welcoming
the decision of the President of the United States of America
to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre and to order a review
of detention, trial, transfer and interrogation policies in the
fight against terrorism”
UK: National Union of Journalists: NUJ
slams Tamil protest policing (NUJ, link). The NUJ has today (Friday)
hit out at the treatment of journalists by police at a Tamil
protest outside the Houses of Parliament on Monday (11/05/09)
and Police
accused of targeting photographers (Guardian, link)
EU ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS REGULATION: Council of the European Union:
Proposal
made by Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Slovenia concerning Article
4, paragraph 2, point (c) of the Commission's proposal (pdf). Following the
European Court of Justice judgment in the Turco case that
Council Legal Opinions on policy-making measures should in general
be made publicly available these four Member States are proposing
that the Regulation be amended to establish this right. Background
see: Turco judgment: Press release and Court
judgment - full-text and the Observatory on
EU Regulation on access to documents: 2008-2009
ITALY: Letter to Commission Barrot: European
Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), osservAzione and the Open Society
Institute (OSI) (pdf) and Memorandum to the European
Commission: Violations of EC law and the fundamental rights of
Roma and Sinti by the Italian government in the implementation
of the census in "Nomad camps" (pdf)
EUROPOL: Council
Decision establishing the European Police Office (Europol) (pdf). This replaces
the Europol Convention of 1995.
UK: TERRORIST ARRESTS: Home Office Statistical Bulletin: Statistics
on Terrorism: Arrests and Outcomes: 11 September 2001 to 31 March
2008
(pdf) Only 13% of people arrested have been convicted of terrorist
offences and 56% were not even charged.
Italy
chamber makes illegal migration a crime (link)
EU: SIS & VEHICLE CHECKS: Implementation
of Article 102A of the Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement
during the year 2007 - Draft report to be submitted to the European
Parliament in accordance with Art. 102A(4) of the Convention
Implementing the Schengen Agreement (CISA) (pdf)
""the JSA [Joint Supervisory Authority, data protection] can only repeat its conclusion from the year 2006 "that the control on the use of data on objects as provided for in Article 102A, is still not in compliance with Article 103". The recording of every transmission for the checking purposes allows for the appropriate authorities to actually check the lawfulness of the processing (use) of the data according to Article 102A. Not ensuring the proper control on the use of data might raise negative data protection implications, i.e. the implementation of the data quality, proportionality principles and data security."
Under the EU measure vehicle data is not considered to be personal data, however:
"national Data Protection Authorities generally consider registration certificates and number plates as personal data, unless the circumstances of processing do not give any possibility or requires unreasonable amount of efforts for identification of the holder of the certificate or number plate. This also relates to the possibilities of the user of the data, and most of them are governmental authorities, to link a number plate to an individual person."
EU: Regulation on access to EU documents: Latest Council position:
Proposal
for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council
regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission
documents (recast) (8.5.09, pdf)
ECHR: How
can the role of the European Court of Human Rights be enhanced?
Recommendations for Germany Policy Paper by Prof. Dr. Christoph
Gusy and Sebastian Müller, Bielefeld University(pdf) and
see: Juristras (link)
European
Commission: Small
chips with big potential: New EU recommendations make sure 21st
century bar codes respect privacy (Press release) and Commission
Recommendation on the implementation of privacy and data protection
principles in applications supported by radio-frequency identification (COM 3200, pdf). See:
EU
pushes for smart tag revolution (euactiv, link)
EU: UK House of Lords European Union Select Committee report:
Procedural
rights in EU criminal proceedings - an update (pdf)
"Make
sure you say that you were treated properly", Gareth Peirce writes
about Torture, Secrecy and the British State (London Review of
Books, link). She is a lawyer who has since the 1970s represented
individuals accused of involvement in terrorism from both the
Irish and the Muslim communities.
EU: Frontex
and the US Department of Homeland Security (Frontex press release,
link): "In the margins of the EU-US Troika on Justice
and Home Affairs Ministerial Meeting held in Prague on 28 April,
Frontex and the US Department of Homeland Security signed a Working
Arrangement on the establishment of operational cooperation.
The arrangement which was signed by Frontex Executive Director Ilkka Laitinen and Mrs. Jane Holl Lute, Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, will lead to transatlantic cooperation in areas related to border security management including exchange of strategic information, training, capacity building and collaboration on relevant technologies."
ITALY-LIBYA: Euro Mediteranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and
Migreurop: Press release: Illegal refoulement
of 500 migrants to Libya : the EU must condemn Italian authorities
(link),
French (link) and
Italian
(link)
EU: Brain
scanning may be used in security checks (Guardian, link). See: the EU FP6 funded
project completed in 2008, Humabio (link), describes itself
as follows:
"HUMABIO is a EC co-funded "Specific Targeted Research Project" (STREP) where new types of biometrics are combined with state of the art sensorial technologies in order to enhance security in a wide spectrum of applications like transportation safety and continuous authentication in safety critical environments like laboratories, airports or other buildings."
Project concept: Unobtrusive Multimodal Biometric Authentication: The HUMABIO Project Concept (link)
UK: G20
police 'used undercover men to incite crowds' - MP demands inquiry
into Met tactics at demo (Observer, link)
EU: Statewatch analysis: The EU’s JHA
agenda after the EP elections (pdf) by Professor Steve Peers, University
of Essex. The European Parliament (EP) has just completed its
last session before breaking for elections in June 2009. This
analysis first of all lists all of the proposals which the Commission
has announced for the rest of 2009 and secondly, all pending
measures which have already been proposed, and which are under
active discussion as of 7 May 2009.
EU: Tony Bunyan's "View from the EU" column: We're
not the only ones to stifle dissent - Police tactics at the G20
demonstrations reflect an Europe–wide trend to conflate
terrorism and protest as equal threats to security (Guardian Libertycentral,
link)
ITALY-LIBYA: Jesuit Refugee Service: Removal
of 227 migrants to Libya directly contravenes international laws (Press release, pdf):
"The forced removal of 227 men and women to Libya by Italian authorities is absolutely unacceptable. With no opportunity to make an asylum claim these migrants now risk ill-\treatment or being pushed back into the arms of their persecutors."
UK: Campsfield
House Immigration Removal Centre: Independent Monitoring Boards:
Annual Report
(pdf)
EU: Asylum applications and decisions: Asylum
in the EU in 2008 (Eurostat, pdf)
UK: We
won't collude with efforts to use the academy to police immigration (Times HIgher Education
Supplement, link): "Ann Singleton, Steve Tombs and David
Whyte decry the insidious way in which academics are being used
to monitor foreign students and staff"
EU: TELECOM PACKAGE REJECTED: Czech Council Presidency reaction:
Presidency
regrets that EP disregards compromise on telecom reform (link). In a bitter
response the Council says that:
"The Czech EU Presidency regrets the fact that the European Parliament did not honour the agreement reached with the Council of the EU and the European Commission on the important overhaul of rules governing the telecoms market.... It is evident that the whole package has become hostage to the pre-election campaign of a part of MEPs."
Tony Bunyan,
Statewatch editor, comments: "Normally "deals"
reached in secret trialogues between the Council and the European
Parliament go through on the nod. This is the first time I know
of that the EP plenary has ever refused to go along with an informal
deal with the Council agreed in the co-decision process. On this
ocassion the grave concerns of civil society have been listened
to."
Wednesday: European Parliament: MEPs reject "deal":
No
agreement on reform of telecom legislation (Press release, pdf):
"A user's Internet access cannot be restricted without
prior ruling by the judicial authorities, insists the European
Parliament reinstating one of its first-reading amendments. By
amending an informal agreement reached with Council, MEPs send
the whole "telecom package" to conciliation."
and see: Amendment 138/46 adopted again. Internet is a fundamental right in Europe (La Quadrature, link)
UK: DNA DATABASE: Update: DNA
pioneer condemns plan to keep details on database for 12 years
- 'Minimal' response to European court ruling - Measures fail
to address key concerns, say lawyers (Guardian, link)
Home Office response to the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the Marper case: Innocent will be sentenced to 12 years on the DNA database and Smith's DNA database by stealth: Jacqui Smith's new plans erode principles of innocent until proven guilty to create a New Labour-style third way: innocentish by Mark Thomas (Guardian links).
Home Office Consultation: Keeping the right people on the DNA database (pdf) and Annex to consultation (3 MB, link)
European Court of Human Rights unanimously finds that the UK practice of keeping indefinitely the fingerprints and DNA of people not convicted of an offence is a violation of Article 8 of the ECHR Convention: Marper case press release (pdf) and Full-text of Marper judgment (pdf).
UK: Court
says police can be challenged on 'stop and search' powers - 11-year-old
twins left distraught after incident (Guardian, link)
European Parliament: Press
release from Stavros Lambrinidis MEP (pdf):
"The European Parliament adopted today with a large majority the Harbour Report amendments on the revision of the E-Privacy Directive, favouring socialist proposals since the initiation of Parliament's involvement in the Civil Liberties Committee, on the mandatory notification of breaches affecting personal data, on user consent for the storing of cookies, and on the protection of IP addresses as personal data."
UK: High
Street stores to offer ID services (Home Office press release (link) and Manchester
launch for ID cards (BBC News, link): "At a series of meetings
on Wednesday, Ms Smith said post offices and pharmacies could
play an important role in the success of the ID scheme, allowing
people to give their fingerprints and a face scan while "out
doing the shopping". "
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:
"It is really hard to see where the government is going. If people can get an ID card at pharmacies and post offices how are they going to check that the person is who they say there are? Will they have access to state databases to check who a person is? How can the security of biometrics (finger-prints) be ensured?"
and across in the USA the General Accountability Office produces yet another report showing flaws in the issuing of passports in tests one was issued to a person who was dead and another to a five year old and on the basis of a false birth certificate: Significant Vulnerabilities in the Passport Issuance Process (pdf)
UK:
Under the Terrorism Act 2000 (Sections 44.1 and 44.2, p36) in
the year a total of 124,687 searches were carried out on pedestrians
and vehicle occupants - "a threefold increase"
on the previous year (41,924). Only 1% resulted in arrests -
1,271 in total and of these only 73 were for terrorist offences.
The Metropolitan Police in London accounted for 87% of the searches.
The Press release notes that 1,045,923 people (or vehicles) were stopped and searched in England and Wales (43 police forces) - a 9% increase on the previous year. The detailed report shows that a more a third of these stops and searches, 393, 583 were carried out by the Metropolitan Police (p39). Overall just of 10% were arrested, 119,567, which means that 926,356 people stopped and searched because they were suspects were not arrested.
Annual report: Statistical News Release: Police Powers and Procedures England and Wales 2007/08 (Press release, pdf) and Police Powers and Procedures England and Wales 2007/08 (pdf).
Story followed up by: Capital sees rise in terror stops (BBC News, link) amd includes a quote from Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of terrorism laws: "It catches no or almost no terrorism material, it has never caught a terrorist and therefore it should be used conservatively."
EU:
European Commission: Proposal
for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 881/2002
imposing certain specific restrictive measures directed against
certain persons and entities associated with Usama bin Laden,
the Al-Qaida network and the Taliban (pdf)
Paranoid
Authorities Wouldn't Let My Plane Fly Over U.S. Territory --
Was It Something I Wrote? (link): "An Air France flight
was forced to divert a plane thousands of miles because a journalist
was considered a national security threat."
European Parliament: Telecoms
Package: When rapporteurs betray EU citizens (La Quadrature, link)
and UK
government pushes for discriminated Internet (La Quadrature, link)
EU: Sison
case returns to Court in ongoing challenge to EU terrorist blacklist: Press release from
European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights in advance
of the 'Sison II' hearing in Luxembourg on 30 April 2009 (case
T-341/07). Sison is challenging the accuracy and legitimacy of
the 'statement of reasons' upon which the Council of the EU now
bases its decision to freeze his assets and included him in the
'terrorist list'. See also pre-hearing
report
of the court rapporteur, abbreviated
defence application and www.echr.eu
EU: Commission
proposals in response to Kadi (COM (2009) 187, 22 April 2009). The
European Commission has presented its eagerly anticipated proposal
to amend the EC Regulations implementing the UN 'terrorist list'
in response to the celebrated EU Court of Justice ruling in Kadi
and Al-Barakaat of September 2008. If adopted, the proposal would introduce
the equivalent listing and de-listing procedures for those followed
for the EU's own 'terrorist list' since the ECJ ruling of December
2006 in the PMOI case. For full story see Statewatch's
Observatory on "terrorist" lists
UK: Update: GCHQ rebuttal Press Release (pdf).Background: Last
week the Home Secretary announced that the government was dropping
plan to create a mega-database holding copies of all communications
(e-mails, phone-calls, mobile phone calls and internet usage)
but: Jacqui's
secret plan to 'Master the Internet': 'Climb down' on central
database was 'a sideshow' (Register, link) and Jacqui
Smith's secret plan to carry on snooping - The home secretary
has vowed to scrap a ‘big brother’ database, but a
bid to spy on us all continues (Sunday Times, link):
"Spy chiefs are pressing ahead with secret plans to monitor all internet use and telephone calls in Britain despite an announcement by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, of a ministerial climbdown over public surveillance. GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, is developing classified technology to intercept and monitor all e-mails, website visits and social networking sessions in Britain. The agency will also be able to track telephone calls made over the internet, as well as all phone calls to land lines and mobiles. The £1 billion snooping project — called Mastering the Internet (MTI) — will rely on thousands of “black box” probes being covertly inserted across online infrastructure."
UK: Campaigners
monitored by civil servants: Intelligence on climate groups passed
to police - 'Orwellian' approach condemned by Liberty (Guardian, link) and
Department
of Transport: Full-text of "Project Delivery and Risk report"
for 13.11.08
(excel file) Alongside Item 1 it says:
"Strength of opposition to expansion at Heathrow leads to direct action before and around time of Ministerial considerations thereby delaying final policy decisions."
The measures in place to "manage" this "risk" are:
"1. Comms
directorate to continually monitor protest groups and brief staff/police
accordingly.
2. Monitroing forward programme to anticipate likely flare points"
The document rates the "inherent risk" as medium or high
April 2009
SWEDEN-CIA FLIGHTS: Sweden spied on
CIA 'terror flights': report (The Local, link)
POLAND-CIA:
New
Evidence of Torture Prison in Poland (Spiegel Online, link) and Uncovering
the Veil Over 'CIA Prison' (Interpress, link) "An official
investigation shows that it is more and more likely that a CIA
prison existed in Poland at the height of the "war on terror"."
Czech Republic: Roma
Seek to Flee Czech Republic (Inter Press Service, link)
EU:
Council of the European Union: Draft
Council Conclusions on establishing an informal EU Network of
National Rapporteurs or Equivalent Mechanisms on Trafficking
in Human Beings (pdf and “Joint
Analysis, Joint Action“ Conference of EU National Rapporteurs
on Trafficking in Human Beings Prague, 30 and 31 March, 2009
- Outcomes of the conference (pdf)
UK: G20 PROTESTS: Report
of the Metropolitan Police Authority (pdf), Motions
submitted
(pdf) and G20
protests: Met police accused of misleading watchdog (Guardian, link)
EU: Report
on the practical operation of the methodology for a systematic
and rigorous monitoring of compliance with the Charter of Fundamental
Rights
(COM 205, 2009, pdf)
EU: UK House of Lords, European Union Committee: Priorities
of the European Union: evidence from the Ambassador of the Czech
Republic and the Minister for Europe (pdf)
UK: Met
pays out compensation to protesters for unlawful arrest (Guardian, link)
EU: Amnesty International: MInimum
standards for asylum-seekers and Dublin (pdf)
European Parliament study: Exchange
of information and data between LEAs within the EU (pdf)
SWEDEN: UN Human Rights Committee: Concluding
observations of the Human Rights Committee (pdf)
USA: Government
Cannot Claim State Secrets To Deny Torture Victims Day In Court (ACLU, link) NEW YORK
– A federal appeals court today ruled that a landmark American
Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen
DataPlan Inc. for its role in the Bush administration's unlawful
extraordinary rendition program can go forward.
EU: Biometric passport Regulation adopted: Regulation
amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2252/2004 on standards for
security features and biometrics in passports and travel documents
issued by Member States (pdf) and Council
press release
(pdf). The Council expresses it disagreement with the age at
which children are to be fingerprinted - it wanted 6 years old
and above, the European Parliament insisted on 12 years and above.
Moreover, the Council continues to insist that this is only a
"technical" question not a moral and political one:
"On a provisional basis children under the age of 12 years will be exempt from the requirement to give fingerprints. The Commission will submit a report no later than three years, on the reliability and technical feasibility of using the fingerprints of children under the age of 12.
UK: Childrens Commissioner: Detention
of children 'must stop' (BBC News. link): "Children who
have been refused asylum should no longer be detained while awaiting
deportation, the children's commissioner for England has said.
Sir Al Aynsley-Green warned in a report that children found Yarl's
Wood Immigration Removal Centre, in Bedfordshire, "like
being in prison". "
and the full report: The Arrest and detention of children subject to immigration control: A report following the Children’s Commissioner for England’s visit to Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre (pdf)
French
spies targeted UK Greenpeace (Sunday Times, link)
SCOTLAND: Revealed:
a web of police bids to infiltrate protest groups (Sunday Herald, link)
A Scottish government spokesperson is quoted as saying: "This
is an operational matter for Strathclyde Police and, obviously,
there is a requirement to balance the protection of individual
civil liberties with ensuring the safety of the wider public.
The justice secretary has discussed the matter with Strathclyde
Police's Assistant Chief Constable and is satisfied the force
has acted proportionately and legitimately."
G8: Conference "Destabilising Factors and Transnational
Threats", 23-24 April, 2009: Address
by Minister Frattini: Destabilizing factors and trans-national
threats
(Rome, 24 April 2009, link) and Agenda (link)
EU: My
view from the EU: Introducing a new guide to the European Union's
impact on British liberty – Eurosceptics and Europhiles
welcome
by Tony Bunyan (Guardian: LIberty Central, link): This is
the first of a regular series looking at civil liberties in the
European Union. It will cover measures going through in Brussels
and the impact of laws and practices on the ground"
UK: 'UK
plc can afford more than 20 quid,' the officer said - Tape recordings
reveal how undercover police tried to recruit environmental activist
to network of 'hundreds' of paid informants they have among protest
groups
(Guardian, link) and Police
caught on tape trying to recruit protester as spy - Plane Stupid
climate change activist taped men who offered cash for information
about group's members and activities (Guardian, link)
UK: Ex-defence
chief says attack on liberties is bowing to terrorists (Guardian, link) and
link to Debate/Hansard Lord Craig of Radley,
a former marshal of the Royal Air Force, in a House of lords
debate:
"Pets were already being routinely fitted with electronic chips detailing their owners addresses. The EU wants all sheep to be similarly tagged. Unacceptable for humans today, but after another decade or more - I wonder? If all were to be chipped at birth, this information could be used for a whole variety of applications favoured by the state such as national identity cards."
SOUTHALL, UK: 23 April 1979: Remembering
Blair Peach: 30 years on (IRR link): "Blair Peach, killed
by a member of the Special Patrol Group in Southall during a
demonstration against the National Front (NF) on 23 April 1979."
The
political legacy of Blair Peach (IIR, link): "From the death
of Blair Peach on 23 April 1979 emerged a series of political
struggles, which must never be forgotten."
GERMANY: Statewatch analysis: Germany:
Permanent state of pre-emption (pdf) by Katrin McGauran: Reform
of the Federal Police Authority is the latest in a series of
legal, institutional and technological developments underpinning
Germany’s increasingly authoritarian “security architecture”.
UK: Lord
Carlile calls inquiry into terror bomb plot raids - Police deny
error as 12 are freed without charge - Lawyers try to stop deportation
to Pakistan
(Guardian,
links) Anti-terror
raids: police weigh red faces against an atrocity and Suffering
in the name of security: Our treatment of 12 young students raises
questions about the politicisation of terrorism investigations by Louise Christian
EU: Statewatch analysis: EU agrees US demands to re-write
data protection agreement (pdf) by Tony Bunyan: "Having
got its way in a series of EU-US treaties on justice and home
affairs cooperation, the USA is now seeking to permanently circumvent
the EU’s “problematic” privacy laws."
EU-USA: A "Partially Declassified" document (ie: lots
of censored sections) but the scope of the overall agenda is
informative: Transatlantic
Relations
– Ongoing Issues with the USA (28 pages, pdf) and European Commission:
Proposal
for a Council Decision: Concerning the extension of the Agreement
for scientific and technological cooperation between the European
Community and the Government of the United States of America (pdf)
EU: European Parliament study: A
Review of the increased use of CCTV and video-surveillance for
crime prevention purposes in Europe by Clive Norris (pdf)
EU: Fundamental Rights Agency: EU-MIDIS:
European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (link) and EU-MIDIS
at a glance Introduction to the FRA’s EU-wide discrimination
survey
(pdf):
"EU-MIDIS is the first ever EU-wide survey of immigrant and ethnic minority groups’ experiences of discrimination and victimisation in everyday life. Addressing the lack of reliable and comparable data on minorities in many EU countries, the survey examines experiences of discriminatory treatment, racist crime victimisation, awareness of rights, and reporting of complaints. EU-MIDIS involved face-to-face interviews with 23,500 persons from selected immigrant and ethnic minority groups in all 27 Member States of the European Union. 5,000 persons from the majority population were also interviewed to compare the results."
VIDEO: Convention on Modern Liberty 28.2.2009 London: How
dangerous is the database state and "transformational government
to our civil liberties? (link): With Guy Herbert, General Secretary, NO2ID,
Tony Bunyan (Statewatch), Sam Talbot Rice (Centre for Policy
Studies), Simon Davies (Privacy International) and Christina
Zaba (Freelance Industrial Council of the National Union of Journalists)
EU: SANCTIONS: Presidency
proposal to set up an informal virtual discussion forum for EU
officials dealing with specific implementation, application and
enforcement of restrictive measures (pdf) and Monitoring
and evaluation of restrictive measures (sanctions) in the framework
of CFSP - Establishment of a ‘Sanctions’ formation
of the Foreign Relations Counsellors Working party (RELEX/Sanctions) (pdf)
European Commission: Commission
Staff Working Document: Study on the international law instruments
in relation to illegal immigration by sea (2007, pdf)
EU: MANDATORY DATA RETENTION DIRECTIVE ONLY APPLIES TO COMMERCIAL
SERVICES: Reply
to EP question from Commissioner Barrot (pdf). "Services that are provided
free of charge" are not covered by the EU Directive on Data
Retention: "an activity which is not of an economic or
commercial character itself or linked to such an activity does
not constitute a service in the meaning of the Treaty" (Case
C-159/90 SPUC v Grogan) - in other words, it does not allow
the placing of obligations on service providers to keep traffic
data on free of charge services.
But see: UK: Electronic Communications: The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009 (Statutory Instrument: 2009 No. 859, pdf) which covers all communications and does not exclude non-commercial/free of charge services and is thus open to a court challenge. Statutory Instruments are secondary legislation and are arely debated before being nodded through.
The SI extends the data to be collected and stored to cover internet usage namely: "The IP address, whether dynamic or static, allocated by the internet access service provider to the communication, and The user ID of the subscriber or registered user of the internet access service." Unlike data collected for phone calls that gathered on internet usage effectively reveals the content of the communication (the pages looked at and documents downloaded).
UK: Spy
chiefs size up net snoop gear (Register, link): "The security
minister has confirmed officials are considering installing technology
that could enable on-demand wiretapping of all communications
passing over the internet by the intelligence services and law
enforcement."
Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission report: Our
Hidden Borders: The UK Border Agency’s Powers of Detention (pdf)
"The Human Rights Commission will today (20 April 2009) at its annual conference launch a new investigation report on the work of the UK Border Agency in Northern Ireland. The report entitled ‘Our Hidden Borders: The UK Border Agency’s Powers of Detention’ examines the extent to which human rights are protected in the decision to detain individuals who are not nationals of the UK and how those detained can have their rights better protected. The findings of the report highlight a range of human rights concerns and as a result the Commission has made a number of recommendations to government that will make the experience of those coming into contact with UKBA officials compliant with international human rights standards."
EU:
Contribution
of the Terrorism Working Party to the discussion on European
system of collecting and analyzing Passenger Name Records (PNR) (pdf). See Statewatch
Observatory on EU surveillance of passengers (PNR)
UK: Secret
police intelligence was given to E.ON before planned demo - Secret
police intelligence passed to firm - Emails show civil servants
passed data on protesters to security officials at E.ON (Guardian, link), MPs
to examine G20 police tactics as new claims emerge: Watchdog
receives record number of complaints (Guardian, link) and At
the core of this policing crisis is a leadership failure: G20
protest footage lays bare a frightening new mindset - officers
see the public as the enemy and protest as illegitimate, by David Gilbertson,
former Scotland Yard Commander and Assistant Inspector of Constabulary
(Guardian, link)
UK: David Howarth MP: This
is the list of items seized by the police at the Kingsnorth Climate
Camp. The list was supplied by Kent Police following an FoI request
(link)
CIA-USA: CIA
torture exemption 'illegal' (BBC News, link):
"US President Barack Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA agents who used torture tactics is a violation of international law, a UN expert says. The UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, says the US is bound under the UN Convention against Torture to prosecute those who engage in it."
Abuse of Power: The Bush Administration's Secret Legal Memos (link to ACLU), Obama exempts CIA 'torture' staff (BBC News, link) and ACLU statement and Call on the Justice Department to Appoint a Special Prosecutor (ACLU, links)
UK: The Home Office has launched a consultation on surveillance
powers used under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
2000: "Tell us what you think about covert investigation"
a lengthy document has been put out: RIPA
2000: Consolidating Orders and Codes of Practice: A Public Consultation
Paper
(124 pages, pdf)
UK: G20
death: Met police officer may face manslaughter charge (Guardian, link) and
Statement
from solicitors (pdf)
EU: Access to documents: Latest Council draft positions: Proposal
for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council
regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission
documents (recast) (dated 16.4.09, pdf) and Proposals
by Finland, Lithuania and Slovenia for deletion of Articles 2.5
and 2.6 and - proposal by Denmark, Estonia and the Netherlands
for amendment to Article 3(a) (dated 17.4.09, pdf).
It should be noted that in the former document the Council is only considering what it calls "Technically admissible European Parliament amendments", thus leaving out most of them from its discussions.
For full background and documentation see: Observatory: the Regulation on access to EU documents: 2008-2009
EU-PNR (Passenger Name Record): Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on the use of Passenger Name
Record (PNR) for law enforcement purposes (17.4.09, EU doc no:
5618/1/09, pdf). For full background documentation see: Observatory:
EU surveillance of passengers (PNR)
EU: Study for the European Parliament: A Comparison
of Border Security Systems in the EU and the USA (pdf)
USA-ICRC: US
Torture: Voices from the Black Sites (New York Review of Books, link) International
Committee for the Red Cross report.
EU:
Europol Terrorism Report for 2009: EU
terrorism situation and trend report (pdf). Of the 515 attacks carried out
or only planned, 397 were by separatist movements, of which 97
percent were in Spain and France. The press release says: "The
overall number of terrorist attacks in the EU in 2008 decreased
by 23 percent in comparison with 2007. For 2008, seven member
states reported a total of 515 failed, foiled or successfully
perpetrated terrorist attacks. Thirteen member states arrested
a total of 1009 individuals for terrorism."
UK: Police
order tourists to delete photographs of bus station (Guardian, link)
UK: G20
police receive 145 complaints (BBC News, link): "A total of
145 complaints have been made following clashes between police
and protesters at the G20 summit. They include 70 claims of excessive
force by alleged victims or witnesses to brutality, the Independent
Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said." and Journalists
on the G20 front line: Media personnel trying to document the
police's handling of G20 protesters were attacked and ordered
away
(Guardian, link)
EU-UK: Commission
takes UK to court over internet privacy (European Voice, link)
COE-ITALY: "Italy
should eradicate discrimination and xenophobia and improve its
migration policy" says Commissioner Hammarberg (Press release, pdf)
and Report
by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council
of Europe Following his visit to Italy on 13-15 January 2009 (pdf):
[16/04/09] “Although efforts have been undertaken, serious concerns remain about the situation of Roma, migration policy and practice, and the non-respect of binding interim measures requested by the European Court of Human Rights” said today Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, presenting his report on Italy.
EU: Article 29 Working Party on data protection: Opinion
2/2009 on the protection of children's personal data (General
Guidelines and the special case of schools) (pdf) and Opinion
3/2009 on the Draft Commission Decision on standard contractual
clauses for the transfer of personal data to processors established
in third countries, under Directive 95/46/EC (data controller
to data processor) (pdf)
UK: Specialist
protest squads at centre of investigations into G20 police violence
- Police territorial support teams, used at demonstrations and
marches, involved in previous controversy (Guardian, link)
EU: Access to Documents: Commission
Secretary-General Staff Guide to public access to Commission
documents
(60 pages, pdf). See below for DG Trade Staff Guide and for background:
Statewatch's Observatory
on Access to EU documents/FOI
CIA: RENDITION: After repeated denials: Polish
media uncover evidence of CIA prison (euobserver, link): "Journalists
from Polish TV station TVP and daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita
say they have obtained new evidence that Poland ran a secret
CIA prison used for extra-judicial extradition of terrorism suspects."
European Commission: Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on combating the sexual abuse
, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, repealing
Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA (COM 135/2009, pdf) and Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on preventing and combating
trafficking in human beings, and protecting victims, repealing
Framework Decision 2002/629/JHA (COM 136/2009,pdf)
UK: DNA
pioneer Alec Jeffreys: drop innocent from database: DNA scientist:
drop innocent from database - Father of genetic fingerprinting
says thousands 'branded as criminals' (Guardian, link):
"Jeffreys, whose pioneering discoveries revolutionised police investigation techniques, condemned the government for leaving innocent people "branded as criminals" by its insistence on keeping the details of everyone arrested, regardless of whether they are later convicted.
He said he was left "almost speechless" by reports that the government planned to respond to a recent European court ruling - that storing innocent people's genetic details broke their right to privacy - by simply removing their profiles from the database but keeping the original DNA samples.
In an interview with the Guardian, he said: "I have significant concerns there [about the size of the database]. That database is currently populated by an unknown number of entirely innocent people. It is not possible to get an accurate number but it appears to be hundreds of thousands.
"My view is very clear that if you have been convicted of a crime then you owe it to society to be retained on that database for catching in the future should you reoffend. But the retention of entirely innocent people is a whole different issue. There is a sort of presumption here that if they haven't committed any crime now, then they will in the future.""
UK: Academics
plan to boycott new student immigration rules (Guardian, link):
"A group
of academics are threatening to boycott the government's new
immigration rules for students, saying orders that they monitor
international students'
movements are discriminatory.
The 35 academics,
who describe themselves as being involved in researching the
"uses and abuses of state power" say that they are
increasingly being drawn
into the role of "policing students" by the immigration
authorities."
and full-text of letter (link)
EU-UK: Brussels
to sue UK over Phorm failures (Register, link) and European Commission
press release: Telecoms:
Commission launches case against UK over privacy and personal
data protection (pdf)
ECHR: Hungarian Civil Liberties Union: Landmark
decision on freedom of information by the European Court of Human
Rights
(pdf) and ECHR:
Full-text of judgment (pdf): The judgment said that FOI requests "to
disclose such information to a “watchdog” group –
whether the press or NGOs that serve a watchdog role – it
is obliged “not to impede the flow of information”":
"The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union won a freedom of information case against the Republic of Hungary. For the first time, the right to access to state-held information as part of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights has been formally recognised, as reflected in today’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. The Strasbourg based Court declared that withholding information needed to participate in public debate on matters of public importance may violate the freedom of expression."
CAGED PRISONERS: Fabricating
Terrorism II: British complicity in renditions and torture (pdf)
European Parliament Study: Overview
of European and international legislation on terrorist financing (pdf)
Update: UK: Were
police spies behind mass arrest of activists? (Independent, link)
and Leading
article: Mass arrests have no place in a democratic country (Independent, link).
Previous: Police
arrest 114 people in pre-emptive strike against environmental
protesters - Activists held in Nottingham over alleged power
station action - Campaigners fear increase in police surveillance
and possible infiltration (Guardian, link) and Police
hold 114 in power protest (BBC News, link)
EU: ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS: EU officials warned to be
careful about email content (euobserver, link). Full-text of: DG
Trade: Vademecum on
access to documents, January 2009 (pdf).
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:
"This staff document exposes the myth of those who claim that the Commission is unable to list all documents on its public register. The internal rules are clear - with some understandable exceptions - all documents should be listed. The problem is that the Commission has failed to enforce its own rules and meet its legal obligations under EU Regulation 1049/2001.
If every time an EU institution does not like the rules and the law these are changed to accomodate them - as some are proposing - it will herald an era of uncertainty and confusion undermining democratic decision-making."
See Statewatch's Observatory: the Regulation on access to EU documents: 2008-2009
UK: Video
of police assault on Ian Tomlinson, who died at G20 protest (Guardian, link) The
Guardian obtained this footage of Ian Tomlinson at a G20 protest
in London shortly before he died. It shows Tomlinson, who was
not part of the demonstration, being assaulted from behind and
pushed to the ground by baton-wielding police. See also: Watch
new ITN/C4 News footage giving a fresh angle on the attack (link) and Video
reveals G20 police assault on man who died - Exclusive footage obtained
by the Guardian shows Ian Tomlinson, who died during G20 protests
in London, was attacked from behind by baton–wielding police
officer.
And: De Menezes taught the Met nothing: Footage of a police assault on Ian Tomlinson at the G20 demo – moments before he died – suggests their tactics are dangerously wrong (Guardian, link)
UK: The
Review of Criminality Information By Sir Ian Magee (pdf) and Government
response
(pdf). Paragraph 44 of the Review concludes:
"The new strategic direction will therefore include the key principles of information management and sharing that will span all public protection organisations and will specify where needed the ways in which criminality information should be recorded, secured, used, exchanged and shared to support public protection."
EU/Africa: Fortress
Europe documents 316 deaths in March 2009
Global
Detention Project (link)
UK: NHS Health records: Summary
care records - you might die, but they never will - Once you
can opt in, you can never opt out (Register, link)
Red Pepper: Viva
Siva:
Now in his eighties, A Sivanandan remains an important figure
in the politics of race and class, maintaining his long-held
insistence that only in the symbiosis of the two struggles can
a genuinely radical politics be found. By Arun Kundnani
Europe: 'A
Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration and Islamophobia in Europe' by Liz Fekete. New book
from the Institute of Race Relations looking at how anti-terrorist
legislation is used to evict undesirable migrants and how refugee
policies lead to the commodification and de-humanisation of asylum
seekers.
UK: ID
cards 'could use chip-and-pin' (BBC News, link)
EU: AEDH statement: The
European Union must change its asylum and immigration policy
- Press release,
April, 2nd 2009
(pdf). French (pdf)
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA) 6 April 2009, Luxembourg:
Conclusions (pdf). See also: council
conclusions on the development
of the SIRENE Bureaux in the framework of the Schengen Information
System
(pdf)
UK: Data
retention laws now applied to e-mail traffic and internet usage (BBC, link)
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA) 6 April 2009, Luxembourg:
A
Point agenda
(pdf), B
Point agenda
(pdf). For full background and documentation on current Justice
and Home Affairs issues see: Statewatch European
Monitoring and Documentation Centre (SEMDOC)
March 2009
EU: European Commission:
Directorate-General for Research: Moving
Europe: EU research on migration and policy needs (pdf) Report written
by Ann Singleton, Head of the Centre for the Study of Poverty
and Social Justice, School for Policy Studies, University of
Bristol.
"This report presents a brief description of the projects in the area of migration and integration of migrants funded in the last five years, their main findings and relevance for policy-making.. The projects address a wide range of issues and demonstrate that migration is inextricably linked to core social, political and economic concerns such as climate change, economic growth, economic instability, working life, welfare, health, youth, aging, gender, education, political participation, social inclusion and social cohesion."
The report contains links to all web pages on the projects covered.
EU: G8 in Italy, 8-10 July 2009: The 2009 G8 Summit will be held
in Maddalena, a small island north of Sardinia. Useful background
document: Italy's
2009 G8: Plans for the G8 Summit (link) and Italian
government G8 website (link). The G8 Justice and Home Affairs Ministers
will be held in Lampedusa on 28-29 May 2009.
EU: Open
letter about readmission agreements - sent to the Union Council
and European Commission (migreurop, link), French (link), Spanish (link): Signed by 76
NGOs including Statewatch and groups from West Sahara, Uruguary,
Mauritania, Morocco, Mali, Guinea and Cameroon.
EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council, 6 April 2009, in Luxembourg:
Background
Paper
(pdf) and Council
press release (pdf). Among the issues on the table are those
covered in the following documents:
- Proposal
for a Council Directive on a single application procedure for
a single permit for third-country nationals to reside and work
in the territory of a Member State and on a common set of rights
for third-country workers legally residing in a Member State (pdf). Latest version
of the proposal on third-country workers' rights - proposing
to cut back the scope of the proposal even further as far as
equal treatment of third-country workers is concerned.
- Proposal
for a Council Framework Decision on prevention and settlement
of conflicts of jurisdiction in criminal proceedings - Outstanding
issues
(pdf)
- European
Security Research Innovation Forum (ESRIF) (pdf): Note from ESRIF
Chair to the JHA Council. Background see: European
Security Research and Innovation Forum (ESRIF) - Intermediate
report: September 2008 (pdf) and Arming Big Brother - the EU's
security research programme (by Ben Hayes, pdf) and The
Shape of Things to Come - the EU Future Group See also story below
on SIS II "crisis"
EU: SIS II "CRISIS": Implementation
of the February JHA Council Conclusions on SIS II (pdf). Assessing the
plan: "to identify all errors in the system, which led
to the crisis of the project and which would prevent it from
a proper completion... [and] a repair of identified bugs."
Previous coverage: EU: SIS II IN A MESS: European Commission: Communication on the Development of the Second Generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) Progress Report: July 2008 – December 2008 (pdf).
"In order to accurately identify the underlying causes of remaining problems affecting the system, the Commission will complete an in-depth analysis of SIS II....The Operational System Test demonstrates that the number of bugs in the central SIS II reduced between November and December 2008 and that the SIS II functionalities work. However, during this phase, a number of problems have persisted..."
It was planned
to .launch SIS II in September 2009, however, major problems
have emerged and the talk is of introducing yet another "stop-gap"
SIS I + R - this despite the fact that many Member States have
already invested millions to meet official specifications. See
Report
of the SIS II Task Force: (EU doc no: 7789/09, 19.3.09):
"There are 7 MS with serious budget problems, 9 MS with
serious problems in resources and 6 MS with serious contract
problems. These three elements are also the top 3 risks for MS
participation in the SIS II as well as in the SIS 1+R(evolution)
alternative."
See also from Informal Justice and Home Affairs Minister meeting in January 2009: SIS II (pdf)
UK: POLICE "PUNISH" PROTESTORS: Baton
charges and kettling: police's G20 crowd control tactics under
fire
(Guardian, link), Coralled
and angry, G20 protesters switch focus of anger from bankers
to police
(Guardian, link):
"Many were stopped and searched. "On Wednesday I was coralled with 4,000 people for four hours for doing nothing," said Tim Smith, a carpenter from London. "Now I have been stopped and searched twice. I have been made to feel like a criminal for exercising my right to peaceful protest.""
G20: Questions need to be asked about 'kettling' - At the G2 protests, police used the controversial tactic of containment, ruled in January to be lawful – but is it right? (Guardian, link) and G20: The police ruined a peaceful protest: I watched the police push into the crowd with a brutality that was not only shocking but utterly unnecessary (Guardian, link)
UK: Jail
for photographing police? (British Journal of Photograhpy, link)
FRANCE: Amnesty International report: Public
Outrage: Police officers above the law in France (pdf):
"the
problems identified in 2005 [report] persist four years on. Amnesty
International’s current research has uncovered continuing
allegations of human rights violations by law enforcement officials
in France. The procedures for investigating such allegations
are still failing to live up to the standards required by international
law, and people in France expect better.
Furthermore, Amnesty International is concerned at what appears
to be an increasing trend for individuals who protest or atte