ENDitorial: EDRi's data retention workshop at CCC

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Deutsch: [ENDitorial: EDRi-Workshop zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung auf dem CCC | http://www.unwatched.org/node/2496]

<---Corrected on 15.01.2011 with the full names of all participants from EDRi members --->

Three EDRi members,Netzwerk Neue Medien (Ralf
Bendrath), Bits of Freedom (Axel Arnbak) and Panoptykon Foundation (Katarzyna Szymielewicz), together with one observer Patrick Breyer from AK Vorrat, gave a talk on
data retention and hosted a workshop for activists during the Chaos
Communication Congress (CCC) which is Europe’s biggest meeting of the
hacking communities and which takes place every year in Berlin. The 27th
congress was held under the revealing title “We come in peace”. During four
days of meetings, hackers, journalists, activists and a few MEPs discussed
the conflicts that threaten freedom in the digital world, the challenges we
will face in 2011, technological discoveries made in 2010 and strategies for
activism.

What we prepared for this occasion was an hour-long lecture presented
along with a dynamic slide show. The presentation was composed of five
parts:
(i) explanation of how data retention came about and what problems we have
with it;
(ii) overview of key jurisprudence undermining the principle of blanket data
retention;
(iii) outcomes of the evaluation process and the state of affairs in the
European Commission;
(iv) cases of abuse from various Member States; and
(v) strategies for further action against data retention.

Our primary goal was to show that the year 2011 will be crucial in the
fight against blanket data retention and therefore we need to create a
broad activist movement and gain more social support to make our voice
heard. We explained how civil society could exert an influence on the
decision makers in Brussels and MEPs and what time frames we faced. We
stressed the need for an EU-wide shadow report to be drafted by March
and published right before the official report by DG Home. Another
point was that we needed to gather data on the use of retention data
from various EU countries, translate it into clear and convincing
messages for the media and prepare a consistent campaigning strategy.

These needs and initial concepts were elaborated during an informal
discussion at our workshop, which was announced in the plenary. CCC
gave us this opportunity to organise our own event on the second day
meant as a discussion space and informal gathering for activists
interested in the data retention campaign. We welcomed about 50 persons
who discussed with us practical aspects of the campaign for nearly two
hours. The energy was high and we felt that another AK Vorrat-type
of mobilisation is possible. As a result of this meeting we decided to
set up provisional discussion tools – a wiki and a mailing list –
where the conversation may continues. Everybody is welcome to join. You
can also do it by e-mailing: info at bof dot nl

Presentation slides (27.12.2010)
http://www.edri.org/files/

Video recording of the talk (27.12.2010)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/415/1/lang,de/

Summary of the workshop (joint effort, in progress)
https://etherpad.foebud.org/dataretentionworkshop

Wiki – dedicated to discussion on the campaign name
https://etherpad.foebud.org/nameforcampaign

(Contribution by Katarzyna Szymielewicz – EDRi-member Panoptykon Foundation, Poland)