Launch of the first European Civil Liberties Day

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Deutsch: [Einstand zum ersten Europäischen Tag der Bürgerrechte | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1374]
Macedonian: [Организиран првиот Европски ден на… | http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/content/view/1440/4/lang,mk/]

Earlier this month, over a hundred politicians, journalists and campaigners
attended the launch of the first European Civil Liberties Day – 15 April at
the European Parliament. Organised by the Liberals and Democrats group
(ALDE), the event featured speeches from MEPs and NGOs on human rights and
the protection of minority groups such as Roma and lesbian, gay and
transgender Europeans.

Event organiser Alexander Alvaro MEP and ALDE leader Graham Watson MEP both
spoke of government attempts to “encroach on the liberty, privacy and choice
that all free citizens should enjoy.” Katarina Kresal, the Slovenian
Minister of Interior, described her conviction that freedom must be a
central concern of governments. Responses came from campaigners of th
International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), the European Newspaper
Publishers´ Associations, the European Roma Policy Coalition, ILGA Europe
and EDRI, whose speech you can read below.

There is much more information available from the ALDE website on the day
and the group’s plans to campaign for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
With the European elections only 6 weeks away, this is a critical moment for
voters who want to see human rights strongly supported in the next European
Parliament.

EDRI speech, given by Ian Brown (EDRI-members FIPR and Open Rights Group):

It’s great to see today’s launch of European Civil Liberties day. Coming
from the UK, which Privacy International now rates as the worst surveillance
state in the EU, I need all the optimism I can get. We have millions of CCTV
cameras; an illegal DNA database of over 5m profiles including nearly
100,000 under-13s; and out-of-control Internet surveillance with 519,000
government accesses in 2007 to people’s communications records.

The UK and its allies have been pushing this surveillance agenda at the
European level, most noticeably with the Data Retention Directive but more
subtly with the exchange of travel records with the US and a “principle of
availability” that allows law enforcement databases to be shared across the
EU.

Some of the member states are looking forward to much, much more electronic
surveillance of their citizens. The Portuguese presidency in 2007 envisaged
a “digital tsunami”, where “Every object the individual uses, every
transaction they make and almost everywhere they go will create a detailed
digital record. This will generate a wealth of information for public
security organisations”. The former UK intelligence coordinator Sir David
Omand recently added: “The realm of intelligence operations is of course a
zone to which the ethical rules that we might hope to govern private conduct
as individuals in society cannot fully apply.”

This surveillance on steroids is being pushed by governments with little
evidence it will prevent terrorism or reduce serious crime. Detailed
criminological studies have found that CCTV cameras reduce crime levels by
only around 2%, except in very specific circumstances such as indoor car
parks. The US National Research Council recently concluded that “there is
not a consensus within the relevant scientific community nor on the
committee regarding whether any behavioral surveillance or physiological
monitoring techniques are ready for use at all in the counterterrorist
context given the present state of the science.”

Liberals and democrats should campaign for a different kind of information
society, where the human rights of citizens remain centre-stage, as they
have been in Europe for the last sixty years and as they are proudly
proclaimed in the EU’s new Charter of Fundamental Rights. Members of
Parliament must continue to stand up for citizens’ rights in the face of
anti-democratic attempts by some Council members to turn the EU into a
surveillance society. Today’s launch is a very positive step in that effort.

Liberalism, democracy and privacy in Europe (16.04.2009)
http://dooooooom.blogspot.com/2009/04/liberalism-democracy-and-privacy-in.html

ALDE Civil Liberties
http://civiliberties.eu/

(contribution by Ian Brown – EDRI-members FIPR and Open Rights Group – UK)