EU & FBI launch global telecommunications surveillance system
01 January 1997
"not a significant document" - UK Home Secretary
A special report by Statewatch published at the end of February detailed plans for a joint plan drawn up by the Council of the European Union and the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to introduce a global system for the surveillance of telecommunications - phone calls, e-mails and faxes. Further investigations have revealed that:
a. The decision to go ahead was never discussed by the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers - it was simply agreed by "written procedure" through an exchange of telexes between the 15 EU governments.
b. The "Requirements" to be placed on network and service providers by the European Union to enable the surveillance of communications adopted on 17 January 1995 - and not made public until November 1996 - is based on the "Requirements" drawn up by the FBI in 1992 (and revised in 1994).
The first attempt by the FBI in the United States to get through a new law to allow for the surveillance of all telecommunications was withdrawn from the Congress in June 1991. In March 1992 a redrafted proposal, the Digital Telephony Bill, was sent to the Congress but after major opposition by civil liberties groups it was quietly withdrawn in the autumn of 1992 just before the Presidential election which saw Clinton returned to the White House.
Part of the FBI's campaign for these new powers included its report, "Law Enforcement REQUIREMENTS for the surveillance of electronic communications" (emphasis in original) put out in June 1992. During 1993 the FBI arranged a meeting in Quantico, USA attended by EU representatives plus Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. In March 1994 the FBI released a new draft proposal ironically renamed: "The Digital Telephony and Privacy Improvement Act". An updated version of the "REQUIREMENTS" were issued by the FBI in June 1994. By early August 1994 the FBI proposal, to be renamed again as "The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act", was formally introduced and on 25 October 1994 President Clinton signed it into law - which placed on the statute book identical powers to those adopted by the EU in January 1995.
EU slow to catch up
It was not until June 1993 that the EU Trevi Ministers, meeting for the last time in Copenhagen, addressed the subject seriously. They agreed the text of a "questionnaire on phone tapping" to be sent to each Member State in July 1993 and to the new members (Finland, Sweden and Austria) in September 1993. The issue was also raised at the "Friends of Trevi" meeting in Copenhagen attended by Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann from the USA. However, this EU report was not completed until November 1995.
When the new Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers held its first meeting in November 1993 in Brussels the Resolution they adopted on "The Interception of Communications" clearly expressed their concern:
"The Council: 1. calls upon the expert group to compare the requirements of the Member States of the Union with those of the FBI. 2. agrees the requirements of the Member States of the Union will be conveyed to the third countries which attended the FBI meeting at its headquarters in Quantico in order to avoid a discussion based solely on the requirements of the FBI."
On 3 March 1994 the K4 Committee, followed by COREPER (the committee of Permanent Representatives of the 15 EU governments) on 10 March 1994, agreed a draft Recommendation calling for a study "to be made of the different technical PSCS-interception possibilities (PSCS, Personal Satellite Communications Services)". In the event the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers on 23 March 1994 discussed, but did not adopt, the Recommendation (not to be confused with the later "Resolution"). On 14-15 April it was back on the agenda of the K4 Committee and on COREPER's on 27 April 1994 which cleared "the text of a confidential letter to