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Dutch plan large-scale satellite snooping
The Dutch ministry of defence is planning to build a large facility to intercept civilian and military satellite communications. The Echelon-like site at Burum, in the north of the Netherlands, will have 15 dishes and listen to telephone, fax and internet telecommunications. The large streams of intercepted information will be examined by a new intelligence […]
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Italian GSM provider warns: too many wiretaps
The Italian mobile operator TIM, one of the largest mobile phone companies in Italy has issued a unique warning that the number of wiretaps has reached the limit. In a fax sent to all Italian public prosecutors they say that they have already over-stretched their capacity from 5.000 to 7.000 simultaneously intercepted mobile phones. New […]
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Finnish security police charged with illegal snooping
Three top officials in Finland’s Security Police (SUPO) and the former head of the security unit of the telecommunications service provider Sonera are to be charged in a case involving suspected illegal telecommunications surveillance, according to the Finnish journal Helsingin Sanomat. The case dates back to November 2000, when Juha E. Miettinen, the head of […]
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Controversy over Czech wiretaps
President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic has condemned a series of police telephone wiretaps as a ‘scandalous’ invasion of citizens’ privacy after press reports stated that officers listened in on his telephone conversations with a businessman. Czech newspapers reported that police wiretapped entrepreneur Ranko Pecic, an old friend of Klaus, for four months until […]
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Belgian Internet users under surveillance
According to a press article published on 15 April 2004 in the Belgian daily boulevard paper ‘La Dernière Heure’, the Ministry of the Interior in Belgium will test new telecom interception hardware and software on the fiberlink used by ADSL broadband users in Belgium. The test will be done by the CTIF (under the federal […]
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Italy and the Netherlands top wiretap chart
According to a report by the German Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Italy and the Netherlands are the wiretap champions of the Western world. The report entitled ‘Rechtswirklichkeit und Effizienz der Überwachung der Telekommunikation’ researches the legal and practical situation in Germany regarding police wiretapping. The report also investigates the situation […]
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New telecommunications act in Germany
On Wednesday 5 May, the Mediation Committee, a common organ of the two German legislative bodies, adopted a compromise regarding the new German Telecommunications Act. It brought back a number of privacy restrictions that were already contained in the Government’s draft act (See EDRI-gram nr. 21), but had been rejected by the Deutsche Bundestag, the […]
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Austrian court demands control military snooping powers
The Austrian Constitutional Court (VfGH) has declared parts of the military power law (Militaerbefugnisgesetz, MBG) unconstitutional, in a decision dated 23 January 2004. The case was instigated by Social Democratic members of the Austrian Parliament. The decision does not repair all points that critics have raised. The military law was adopted in the year 2000 […]
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Dutch parliament questions crypto telephone
The presentation of a crypto mobile telephone has stirred some controversy in the Netherlands. The Cryptophone has been developed in the Netherlands and is sold through a German company. The device is a combined GSM and organiser running Windows Pocket PC. The software encrypts the call when connecting to another Cryptophone. The Cryptophone should make […]
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FIPR workshop on snooping-laws in the UK
On 22 October, EDRI members FIPR and Privacy International held a public meeting to assess proposed government legislation to retain and snoop on information about the phone and Internet activity of everyone in the UK. Speakers from the government side tried to convince a sceptical audience that the plans were a necessary and proportionate response […]
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Protest against super database in Romania
Human rights experts in Romania issued harsh criticism at the government resolution adopted last week to set up an Integrated Information System (SII), as they consider it as extremely dense, imprecise and giving room to arbitrary interpretation. The SII is a database that will centralise the information held by all public institutions regarding natural and […]
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German debate about wiretapping statistics
After public criticism the German ministry of economy (Bundeswirtschaftsministerium) is withdrawing plans to discontinue the central yearly statistics on wiretapped telephones. In an article in ‘Focus’-magazine the ministry announced its intention to change the next draft of the telecommunications law accordingly. A week later the ministry issued a press release denying the abolishment plan. According […]
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