EU Data Snoops Back in Town

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Saturday October 09, 2004 14:53 by redjade

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EXAMINER -- All the Irish broadsheets carry stories today about the intentions of the EU's intention to enable unprecendented leles of surveillaance on all forms of electronic communications throughout Europe. As Michael O'Farrell explains, "if agreed by the EU Parliament, a draft proposal introduced by Ireland--along with France, Sweden and Britain--will see details of every telephone call and internet session logged and stored for between 12 and 36 months."
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What is troubling about the current proposal is it allows access to the records for the "purpose of prevention, inveestigation, detection and prosecution of any crime."

This is not a good law. It goes beyond the suctioning power of the US Patriot Act. At its very core, this act allows the government to assume everyone is guilty of some transgression, so everyone's electronic records are tapped.

more at
http://irish.typepad.com/irisheyes/2004/10/data_snoops_bac.html