What is Wrong With Europe? Privacy International Report Criticises EU anti-terror policies

Europe is failing to protect privacy and civil liberties, even more so than the U.S.

In a report released today Privacy International, a London-based watchdog organisation, compares the anti-terrorism approaches in the U.S. with those in Europe. It finds that on every policy involving mass surveillance of its citizens, the EU is prepared to go well beyond what the U.S. Government finds acceptable and palatable, and violate the privacy of citizens.

For instance, today the European Parliament is being forced by the Council of the European Union to approve a measure on communications data retention. This ’directive’ requires every EU country to force telephone companies, internet service providers and other providers of communications services to monitor the logs of the communications made by their clients, no matter if they are being investigated or not. These logs will be retained for varying periods of time: the directive calls for up to two years but permits greater periods, e.g. Poland is calling for 15 years, Ireland three years.

There is no similar policy in the U.S. In fact, lesser surveillance policies are heavily debated and scrutinised, covered widely in the media, protested against in public demonstrations, discussions and court cases. At the European Parliament the debate was limited to a first reading.

This is endemic in all the policy debates within the EU on such policies. Though both blocs try to limit debate and deliberation using a number of strategies, the European governments are the most successful at doing so.

According to Privacy International’s Senior Fellow Dr. Gus Hosein:

«It is no surprise that governments introduce harsh laws after terrorist attacks. But what is surprising when you compare the surveillance laws in Europe and the U.S. you find that the EU always goes further. The EU plans to fingerprint all of its citizens, monitor all communications transactions, surveil all movement and travel. All these policies have been rejected by the U.S. but are now law in Europe. The EU and some of its member states may paint the U.S. as a monster when it comes to anti-terror powers and civil liberties but they need to look into the mirror every now and then.»

The notable exception to the rule that the EU always goes further than the U.S. is in border security. In this case both blocs are introducing vast surveillance regimes with little oversight and debate.

The report is available at http://www.privacyinternational.org/ or http://www.privacyinternational.org/

December 14, 2005