European Parliament cross-party initiative against EU electronic surveillance

Thirty-eight members of the European Parliament from seven political parties have signed an open letter to the European Council showing their opposition to the EU guidelines for the expansion of electronic surveillance of EU citizens.

Marco Cappato, Italian member of the European Parliament and former EP rapporteur on the privacy report on electronic communications, introduced the initiative. The letter opposes EU proposals for forcing telephone and internet companies to retain data for a period of 12 to 24 months.

Over this period, the data would be accessible to law enforcement agencies. The retention would includes all types of electronic data: phone calls, use of credit cards, content of e-mails and details about someone’s use of the internet.

In their letter, the members of the Parliament compare the European guideline to the American project of electronic surveillance, their ‘Total Information Awareness’. On January 23, the US Senate unanimously asked for suspension of the development of this system out of privacy concerns.

Cappato and his supporters also point out that mandatory preventive retention of data traffic violates Article 8 of the European Court of Human Rights and its jurisprudence. They also claim that current measures of a less intrusive character are sufficient for law enforcement agencies and that their extension according to the recently proposed plans can potentially "undermine the very democracy it claims to defend".