As reported by Novye Izvestia, the ministerial meeting took place in Brussels six days after the bombings in London, and therefore the most radical recommendations of experts on strengthening society's protection against terrorism were this time adopted without objection.
The ministers recommend that their governments and the EU adopt a package of measures under which, in particular, mobile and fixed-line telephone operators, as well as internet providers, will be required to retain records of all telephone conversations, SMS messages and emails passing through them for at least one year. The density of surveillance cameras in public places will be increased, and the footage obtained from them can be used in court as part of the evidence base. The fact is that in a number of European countries, courts are forbidden to use footage from surveillance cameras taken in a whole range of places, for example in public transport. These restrictions were introduced to protect the private lives of citizens.
In addition, it is recommended to strengthen control over the activities of charitable organizations, some of which, as is known, collect donations for terrorists. If the EU accepts the ministers' proposals, all flows of 'charitable' money will become more 'transparent'. Otherwise, the activities of the relevant organizations will be suspended.
In principle, such measures had been discussed in the EU before, immediately after the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001, and also after the train bombing in Madrid in 2004. But then all this remained good intentions, the implementation of which was slowed down by the European Parliament under pressure from human rights organizations. "The EU has never conducted a deep study of the need to create a giant computer database containing information on 450 million residents of the Union," said, not later than early June, human rights activists from the organization European Digital Rights ('Digital' Rights of Europeans), which until now has successfully lobbied this issue in the European Parliament. The fears of human rights defenders were reinforced by a recent scandal at the largest telephone company in Finland, 'Sonera', whose management used recordings of customers' telephone conversations for their own purposes. Human rights activists insisted that if the law on mandatory long-term storage of all information by telephone operators were adopted, the 'Sonera syndrome' would spread to all of Europe. However, the explosions in London, according to observers, will now force European parliamentarians to side with the 'security services'.
Individual EU member states have decided to go even further in their fight against terrorism. The military will be brought in for electronic surveillance of citizens, and in addition, secret searches of homes and cars will be allowed, about which the authorities will not notify their owners. Sweden, in particular, has decided to take this path.
The government will propose that parliament adopt amendments to the law under which military intelligence and its component, the electronic intelligence service, will be switched to fight terrorism. The military will 'back up' civilian telecom operators, storing and analyzing records of telephone conversations as well as information obtained from the Internet. The men in uniform will break into ordinary citizens' computers using spy programs, which the armed forces' technical services are already working to improve.
Furthermore, as Swedish Justice Minister Thomas Bodström said, the security police and the regular police will be able to enter the homes and vehicles of any citizens, even if there are no suspicions that these people have committed specific crimes. It will also be possible to seize items and documents without drawing up a report and without notifying the victim of the intrusion into their territory.
"This is worse than 1937 in the Soviet Union!" human rights activists are indignant. "But it is better than waiting for new deaths at the hands of terrorists," respond the officials pushing for the changes to the law.
Alexei Smirnov.
Novye Izvestia