Statewatch News online: Statewatch's "Scoreboard" on the threats to civil liberties and privacy in EU terrorism plans

Summary

1. The tragedy in Madrid on 11 March 2004 requires a response from the EU to review and reinforce counter-terrorist measures. An analysis of the 57 proposals on the table at the EU Summit on 25-26 March in Brussels shows that 30 of these meet this need.

2. However, the analysis also shows that 27 of the proposals have little or nothing to do with tackling terrorism - they deal with crime in general and surveillance.

3. A number of the proposals would introduce the wholesale surveillance of everyone in Europe and could potentially be used for social and political control:

a) through logging all telecommunications (e-mails, phone-calls, mobile-calls, faxes and internet usage;

b) tracking all air travel in and out and within the EU (effectively an EU version of the USA's controversial PNR, CAPPS II and US-VISIT plans);

c) the fingerprinting of nearly everyone in the EU by the introduction of biometric passports and ID cards for citizens and the same for resident third country nationals.

4. If in defending democracy measures are introduced that fundamentally undermine civil liberties and peoples' right to privacy, it has to be asked what are we defending?

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

"Under the guise of tackling terrorism the EU is planning to bring in a swathe of measures to do with crime and the surveillance of the whole population. After the dreadful loss of life and injuries in Madrid we need a response that unites Europe rather than divides it"

Statewatch analysis and Scoreboard

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