Surveillance to dominate EU security crackdown

Travel and telecommunications surveillance will top new anti-terror measures to be unveiled at a Brussels summit of EU leaders.

A declaration on Thursday evening will express solidarity with Spain after the March 11 Madrid bombings that killed 190 people.

But measures to set up the logging of all telecommunications records combined with a European database tracking all air and maritime travel in, out and within the EU will raise privacy fears.

Key measures to store records of e-mails, mobile phone calls, faxes and internet usage, and moves toward the use of passenger booking data by EU security agencies were revealed last week.

The EU is also to accelerate the introduction of high-tech ‘biometric’ identity documents – a move that will lead to “mandatory” digital fingerprinting.

A study by civil liberties monitors Statewatch finds that of 57 proposals 27 “have little or nothing to do with tackling terrorism – they deal with crime in general and surveillance”.

The group warns that freedoms should not become another casualty of Madrid.

“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,” said Statewatch editor Tony Bunyan.

“After the dreadful loss of life and injuries in Madrid we need a response that unites Europe rather than divides it.”

But European Commission chief Romano Prodi believes the terror attacks on Spain to be the wake-up call for Europe.

“I think that all Europeans feel in their hearts the threat of terrorism,” he said on Wednesday.

“I feel different since Madrid. I feel there is a more pressing need for us Europeans to stand together.”

Prodi argues that the EU reponse is proportional to the threat.

“Since Madrid we have worked very hard to come up with steps to enable the EU to fight terrorism,” he said.

“Terrorism is the single most important threat to the free world… it is the single most important threat since World War Two.”

Unveiling the surveillance crackdown last Friday, the Irish EU presidency dismissed "wholly naive" civil liberties campaigners.

“I think it is a very false dichotomy to distinguish between civil liberties on the one hand and the right to go to work and not to be blown up on the other hand,” the Irish justice minister Michael McDowell said.

“You can’t have civil liberties at the expense of people’s life and limb.”

Statewatch reject McDowell's attacks, "the Irish presidency is seeking to create its own false dichotomy by suggesting the only alternatives are 'surveillance on everyone' or 'surveillance on no-one'".

"The wholesale and mandatory surveillance that is proposed is entirely incompatible with the “balance”...  to respect the individual right to privacy on the one hand and the legitimate need for state agencies to conduct intrusive surveillance in specified and sanctioned circumstances on the other," concludes the group's report published on Thursday

Click here to read EUpolitix.com coverage of Europe’s anti-terror measures.

The Statewatch ‘Scoreboard’ on EU counter-terrorism plans can be found under further reading on the right.

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