Fears over EU's secret surveillance plans!

Privacy groups believe that European governments will soon force ISPs and telcos to store details of Web use, emails and phone calls for up to two years

Privacy advocates have claimed that the European Union is planning to bring in sweeping changes to the laws that govern data retention and privacy in the EU, compelling the long-term storage of users' communications traffic data and making this information available to EU governments.

Statewatch, a UK Internet-based organisation that monitors threats to civil liberties within Europe, said on Monday that European governments are planning to force all of Europe's telephone and mobile network operators and Internet service providers (ISPs) to store details of their customers' communications traffic data for up to two years.

This data, which would include records of Web use, emails and phone calls, would be made available to governments and law enforcement agencies.

The European Parliament is currently debating changes to the 1997 EU Directive on privacy in telecommunications, which governs existing laws on communications data retention. This directive states that traffic data can only be retained for billing purposes, and must then be deleted.

European governments were expected to agree to changes to the 1997 directive that would allow individual countries to bring in laws forcing communications firms to retain data.

Statewatch, though, says it has seen a copy of a binding "Framework Decision" that is currently being worked on by some EU governments. The framework decision, which could be voted into law next month, would force all governments to bring in laws that would compel communications firms to retain all traffic data for between 12 and 24 months.

As ZDNet UK reported earlier this year, it has been rumoured for some time that EU governments were secretly working on such changes.

"EU governments claimed that changes to the 1997 EC Directive on privacy in telecommunications to allow for data retention and access by the law enforcement agencies would not be binding on Member States -- each national parliament would have to decide. Now we know that all along they were intending to make it binding, 'compulsory', across Europe," said Tony Bunyan, editor of Statewatch, in a statement.

Bunyan added that the draft Framework Decision would sweep away the basic rights of data protection, the proper rules of procedure, scrutiny by supervisory bodies and judicial review.

It is thought that the Framework Decision includes the proviso that the police would need to obtain a judicial order before gaining access to traffic data, but Statewatch warns that such conditions have been sidestepped before.

The European Parliament did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

source: http://www.zdnet.co.uk


Technodrome

 

At the moment they have to keep all for three months, which some deny they do and others might not do for storage reasons and which they think is very annoying already, so two years?
Hmm, time to have another look ant the anonymizers and sweepers and all that.
Want to keep all the postings on newsgroups, forums, and emails too? Wow! nobody will ever believe this! The ISPs might offer their users free holidays for long time for areas without internet to keep their storage smaller!
Bureaucrats can think out amazing things, but did they ever think of practise? Will gthey give all user licences in governmental hands and all ISPs taken over by governments? How else will they do this?!
Saw the kind of warnings and about lots of other subjects already from usa origins, so......... very unhealthy subject!

 

Bushism is starting to spread around the world. He will assimilate you in Borglike manner. Your government masters are but puppets for the great GWB.
Resistance is futile!
Also remember, this great war against evil people is costing lots of Dinero. Soon you will pay taxes for the privilege of having your secret information stolen and stored by the NSA.
Jooske, not really so hard to believe. Google has most of the web stored on disks. Notice all the cached pages?

 

Not only they, also www.archive.org ......

It's one of the reasons many people are trying to open eyes and have the urgent changes taking place asap. We all know where it comes from, don't we?
It's highly infective and spreads far too rapido! As too many profit of it, personally.
The "fun" is EU people try to warn the USA people who might not find it in their news and the USA people are warning the EU populations for the same reasons, so i try to keep up with several sources and newsgroups.

How often providers/hosting services have in their TOS all content is theirs? Your web sites, info on it, postings, emails and they can decide what to do with it.
As yahoo bought hotmail (suppose that includes MSN? hmmm!!) and 90% of the shares is in the Bushes hands, what else can you expect? See the link to NSA very clearly.

 

Democracy.

De-Mocracy.

Bring back Mocracy.

 

hi all

this sounds like it could be bad news for all us Privacy advocates out there i think i have to agree time go back and look at thoughs anomizers

i though the net was designed to promote feedom of speach and all that i tell ya what i cant say i like the idea of havein all my surfin/comunications recorded and logged and made avalible for inspection and i espacley dont like the idea of big brother eves droping on all my privet emails and comunications with friends

ok i understand that the govements of the world have do do somthin to stop all the cyber crime that goes on through out the world but i dont think this is the way coz in my opinion this sort of thing violats everyone most basic privarsey rights and unlike now where we can limet logging and all that through the use of anomizers etc i dont think thay would do us much good against somthing like this i hope this idea gets scraped coz im my opinion its bad news all round

 

Well dust off the PGP tools, looks like we'll be needin em.

I wonder what MR BLAZE thinks about all this?

 

Bush Security Plan Would Target And Screen Email
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/1451481
Was this one already posted in another thread maybe?
The Bush administration would also seek to mandate certification programs for government IT workers.
Heya MrBlaze, still looking for certifications and jobs?

 

This "plan" will never work. But they can always try. *laughter*

 

They can always move to the great old USA where we are still FREE

 

Like they say, "Only the Shadow knows!"

 

you just keep telling yourself that.

 

Easy big fella. Play nice

 

yes you are right. I suppose my comment was perhaps a smidge on the cheap side. My opoligies sirs and madams. no more of that from me