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Extremely high Romanian wiretapping costs
According to declarations of Romanian public officials, during the last month, the total costs of the specialized police services for legal wiretapping in 2005 was at least 118 million euros, an amount very close to the annual national budget for scientific research. As Catalin Harnagea, former director of a Romanian Secret Service unit, declared the […]
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Government communication illegally wiretapped in Greece
Over a 100 phone numbers of Greek Government officials were illegally wiretapped for 11 months, during and after the 2004 Olympic games. This was confirmed on 2 February 2006 by three ministers during the daily Greek government press conference. The illegal wiretaps were discovered in March 2005 during a routine control at Vodafone, one of […]
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Slovenian Intelligence Agency performed illegal eavesdropping
The Slovenian constitutional court issued a decision on 8 December 2005 ascertaining that, in 1996, SOVA (Slovenian intelligence agency) illegally performed eavesdropping to a suspected person later sentenced for unjustified production and trading of drugs. The most aggravating evidences for the defendant were the telephone conversation recordings that SOVA made for the police. The eavesdropping […]
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Comparison between US and European anti-terror policies
In a report titled ” Threatening the Open Society: Comparing Anti-terror Policies and Strategies in the U.S. and Europe” and released on 13 December 2005, Privacy International compared the anti-terrorism approaches in the U.S. with those in Europe. The report finds that on every policy involving mass surveillance of its citizens, the EU is prepared […]
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New anti-terrorism measures in Denmark
Like France, Denmark is also working on a new round of anti-terrorism measures, to be presented to Parliament in the spring of 2006. The proposals are quite far reaching and encompass a range of intrusions into citizens’ digital privacy. Among the most notorious proposals are: – a recommendation to let the authorities monitor the entire […]
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German court outlaws wiretapping without court order
The German Constitutional Court has outlawed a special security law of the state of Niedersachsen that allowed police to wiretap telephone connections without any specific suspicion, as well as collect traffic data, GSM location data, e-mail and SMS traffic. The ruling also affects the state of Thuringen, with a similar law, and Bavaria, currently developing […]
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Romanian MPs propose wiretapping without court order
In Romania, 4 parliamentarians from the (opposition) Social Democrat Party (PSD) have initiated a draft law to drastically extend wiretapping powers in cases of defending national security. According to the draft law the interception of communications would be possible without a warrant from a judge in some cases. In special cases that involve the national […]
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Another Italian community server violated?
After the recent discovery that the Italian Autistici/Inventati server had been seized by the Italian police and a backdoor had been probably installed to allow for easier monitoring of all communication going through it, looks like another Italian community server could have endured the same fate. On Monday 27 June 2005, two members of FLUG […]
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Police backdoor discovered in Italian alternative server
On 21 June 2005 the Italian collective Austistici/Inventati discovered a major police backdoor in their server. The server hosts a large number of websites, mailboxes, mailing lists and Internet services for NGOs, grassroots activists and public interest associations. The backdoor was installed over a year ago, on 15 June 2004 by the Italian “Polizia Postale” […]
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Belgian police doubles wiretapping
The Belgian police has doubled the number of judicial telephone wiretaps in 2004. From 1.336 intercepts in 2003, they went to 2.562 intercepts in 2004. In 2002, the number was below 900. In Belgium, an intercept law was adopted in 1994 that allowed for telephony wiretaps, if authorised by an investigating magistrate and for a […]
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No ban on wiretapping of Dutch lawyers
The Dutch association of criminal defence lawyers (NVSA) has lost a court case (preliminary proceedings) demanding an immediate stop to the practice of wiretapping their confidential telephone conversations with clients. On 15 March 2005 the administrative Court of the Hague ruled that these conversations do not per definition fall under the professional secrecy. There is […]
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XS4ALL sues Dutch State for investments in wiretapping
The Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL has launched a court case against the Dutch State to recuperate the investments it has done to comply with wiretapping legislation. XS4ALL says it has invested half a million euro since 2001 to enable law enforcement authorities to place a wiretap on a specific customer. The Dutch State only reimburses […]
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