Updated 18 April 2002. Thanks to Anonymous.
April 18th, 2002
The European Parliament's Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs (LIBE) Committee has voted against general data retention. Still, it would come as no surprise if the EP Plenary should vote differently on May 15th -- the vote in Plenary has been postponed until then.
Members of PSE (Socialist), EPP (Conservative) and ELDR (Liberal) Groups whose party are in governance in many member states, in particular will experience heavy pressure from their national leadership. National governments tend to lobby their respective party friends into taking the position of law enforcement.
In addition to data retention the vote included several other issues; among them spam, cookies, and reverse-searchability of electronic directories. Except for the directories, where a bare majority voted in favour of requiring reverse-search to be subject to the listed person's agreement, the outcome was pretty unsatisfactory for privacy advocates, with so-called "national choice", i.e., opt-out for e-mails and basically no limitations as to what cookies may spy on.
The report as approved in the committee will be published at the end of April on the EP web site:
http://www.europarl.eu.int/plenary/default.en.htm
Click "agenda / by part-session", next on "Agenda of part-session", then on "Tuesday 16 May 2002", which is the date when the report will be discussed in Plenary.)
17 April 2002. Thanks to Anonymous.
Dear friends,
I am writing ou to inform you on the latest proceedings concerning the EU Directive on the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector: the Cappato report in the European Parliament.
Until last week it seemed pretty certain that the EP would stand by its determined resistance against the retention of all traffic data. Even if -- considering the Parliament's votes on other reports dealing with surveillance -- this position wasn't founded on a fundamental respect for the human right of privacy, but rather on a non-understanding of the technical issues by most MEPs, there seemed to be an understanding that all amendments voted in the first reading of this Directive on November 13th, 2001, would not be challenged in the second reading. Especially not if amendments were approved unanimously, as was Marco Cappato's amendment on Article 15, requiring conformance with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights that all such measures must be "entirely exceptional, based on a specific law which is comprehensible to the general public, and shall be authorised by the judicial or other competent authorities on a case-by-case basis."
Under the European Convention on Human Rights and pursuant to rulings issued by the European Court of Human Rights, "any form of wide-scale general or exploratory electronic surveillance is prohibited." Cappato re-tabled this Amendment for the Second Reading: it is Am. No. 16 of the draft report.
But who would have thought that this would be the Parliament's final vote on Data Retention, only because there was an agreement saying so, and had not taken into account the shock wave of September 11th, which generated, as everywhere else, a wind behind those who claim to fight terror with surveillance. In the EU, this meant, in the first place, support for the Council's infamous ENFOPOL working group, who had started working on plans to retain all communication details for a period of up to seven years long ago. After the attacks on the U.S., these plans gained new impetus. On the very day that the Cappato report was approved by a broad majority in the EP, we learned that the Council had sought advice from its judicial service concerning the question of general data retention, and that the service had broadly given its thumbs up (Council Document 10451/01).
On November 30th, the Council published its own Proposal for the Directive (14631/01), and as expected it called for "inter alia (...) the retention of data for a limited period justified on the grounds laid down in this paragraph" -- national/state security; defence; public security; prevention, investigation, detection, and prosecution of criminal offences or of unauthorised use of the electronic communication system -- "in accordance with the general principles of Community law."
The same formula was found in the Common Position (15396/01) the Council communicated to the Parliament on February 6th. By this time, it was pretty simple: the Council, speaking in favour of law enforcement and surveillance spooks, was in favour of data retention; the Parliament, with regard to Fundamental Rights, was against it.
As of April 15th, this situation has changed. On that day the "Rapporteur", a special-interest newspaper distributed mainly in the EP, published an article quoting several influential MEPs from different groups all speaking out in favour of an amendment previously tabled by Ana Palacio, Spanish Conservative and chairperson of the Civil Liberties and Interior Affairs (LIBE) Committee. The Amendment -- No. 33 in the attached file -- takes up the Council formula on data retention, adding only that retention must be in accordance with "European Convention on Human Rights and and pursuant to rulings issued by the European Court of Human Right (sic)".
Until the publication of the "Rapporteur" article, this was seen as Mrs. Palacio's private opinion, even though it was in contradiction to the Parliament's agreement not to tamper with amendments approved unanimously in the first reading. It was obvious Palacio had been influenced by her Spanish compatriots and party friends, who hold the Council Presidency during the first half of 2002 and have declared the "fight against terror" their top priority. But the "Rapporteur" quoted British PSE (Labour) LIBE member, Michael Cashman, who is very influential in his group, and German Conservative Christian von Boetticher, Coordinator of the EPP (Conservative) Group in LIBE and shadow rapporteur on the Data Protection Directive, as being in favour of Palacio's amendment. Even though Palacio claimed during a trilogue meeting on April 16th that the Conservative group's position on data retention was not yet set, she gave Swedish MEP Charlotte Cederschiold, a Conservative, an easily overheard verbal thrashing in front of the session room, apparently because Cederschiold had said she was still in favour of Cappato's position against retention.
Together the EPP and PSE Groups hold a vast majority of almost two thirds of the Parliament, and reportedly several Liberal MEPs tend to vote in favour of the Palacio Amendment also, so the vote might get tight even if a lot of EPP/PSE MEPs should not vote with their respective Group's loudmouths. The vote in the Committee will take place tomorow, April 18th, from 10:00 am CET onwards, the vote in Plenary will be on April 25th.
[Attached documents.]
PROVISIONAL
2000/0189(COD)
12 March 2002
***II
DRAFT RECOMMENDATION FOR SECOND READING
on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament
and
Council directive concerning the processing of personal data and the
protection
of privacy in the electronic communications sector
(15396/2/2001 – C5-0035/2002 – 2000/0189(COD))
Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs
Rapporteur: Marco Cappato
http://cryptome.org/DP2ndre.pdf (23 pages; 90KB)
10 April 2002
PE 311.019/20-37
Draft recommendation for second reading (PE 311.019/20-37)
Marco Cappato
Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector
Council common position (15396/2/2001 – C5-0035/2002 – 2000/0189(COD))
http://cryptome.org/DP2reAM.pdf (16 pages; 65KB)