surveillance
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FNF15: Privacy advocates’ summit in Brussels
Civil society has a big role in keeping governments on the right track. This is not only true at the national level, but also important with regard to policy-making in the EU. To enable civil society to do so, the annual Freedom not Fear (FNF) conference on 16-19 October in Brussels gathered participants from over […]
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Finland: New surveillance law threatens fundamental rights
Finnish EDRi member Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi) is gravely concerned over a draft law on Internet surveillance. The bill that the country’s current government is in the process of preparing will grant the military and the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo) the authority to conduct electronic mass surveillance for military and civilian intelligence purposes. On […]
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Netherlands: New proposals for dragnet surveillance underway
In the Netherlands, online consultations by the government have been concluded on far-reaching proposals that foresee the expansion of surveillance powers of the intelligence services and the creation of new surveillance powers for the tax authorities (“Wet op de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten” and “Concept-Besluit Bijzondere vergaring nummergegevens telecommunicatie”). If proposed and enacted into law, they […]
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Civil rights groups condemn draft mass surveillance bill to be adopted in France
Today EDRi, together with 30 civil rights groups, sent the following letter to French parliamentarians to condemn a draft mass surveillance bill which is scheduled to be adopted on 1 October. You can download the letter in English (pdf) and in French (pdf). If your organisation wishes to sign, please contact us at brussels(at)edri.org. Dear […]
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Germany: The secret service’s 300-million-euro surveillance plan
This is a shortened English version of the German article originally published by Andre Meister on Netzpolitik.org. Translation and changes by Kirsten Fiedler and Nikolai Schnarrenberger. Fibreoptic surveillance, scanning of Internet traffic in real time, cracking encryption, hacking computers: Germany’s foreign intelligence agency “Bundesnachrichtendienst” (BND) is massively expanding its internet surveillance capabilities. On 21 September, […]
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Three French NGOs challenge French international surveillance
On 3 September 2015, the non-profit Internet Service Providers (ISPs) French Data Network (FDN) and the FDN Federation (FFDN) as well as a digital rights advocacy group La Quadrature du Net announced the introduction of two legal challenges before the French Council of State against the Internet surveillance activities of French foreign intelligence services, Directorate-General […]
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Austria creates new agency with unprecedented surveillance powers
In the midst of the biggest surveillance scandal of mankind and after years of criticism about rogue secret agencies spying on politicians and the government bodies supposed to control them, Austria is planning to establish a new secret agency. Austria’s draft state security law, “Staatsschutzgesetz”, grants new, far reaching surveillance powers while reducing oversight and […]
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Netzpolitik.org case: Prosecutor dismissed, inquiry dropped
As reported previously in EDRi-gram at the end of July 2015, two reporters of a German digital rights blog Netzpolitik.org, Markus Beckedahl and André Meister, were under investigation for treason after the publication of leaked documents revealing plans to expand German internet surveillance. On 10 August, German federal prosecutors announced that the much disputed investigation will […]
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Launch of the EU Internet Forum – behind closed doors and without civil society
The European Commission has confirmed to EDRi that it is preparing to partner with US online companies in order to plan the arbitrary monitoring and censorship of European citizens and, contrary to previous assurances, will exclude civil society from these discussions. More disturbingly, this is happening at the same time as the US is preparing […]
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Leaked documents: German news site Netzpolitik.org investigated for treason
If it were up to the Federal Attorney General and the President of the German Domestic Security Agency, two reporters of Netzpolitik.org, a German digital rights blog, would soon be in prison for at least two years. Yesterday, the news blog was officially informed about investigations against the editors Markus Beckedahl and Andre Meister. The […]
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French Constitutional Council approves sweeping surveillance powers
On 23 July, the French Constitutional Council approved sweeping surveillance powers for intelligence agencies. In its decision, the Council declared almost all provisions constitutional, in contradiction to vehement opposition from civil rights groups, human rights experts, academia and the online business sector. The “Loi Renseignement” (also dubbed the “French Patriot Act”) was passed by the […]
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Dutch Minister reveals plans for dragnet surveillance
Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch Minister of the Interior, wants to make sure that the Dutch secret services have the powers to spy on the behaviour of all citizens and gain insight in all of their communications: phone calls, emails, chat messages and website visits. This much is clear after he published an update of the […]
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