Digital Rights Ireland Sues Government

TJM

[Cross posted from digitalrights.ie]

We have now started our legal action against the Government challenging Irish and European laws on data retention. The following is the text of the press release:

DIGITAL RIGHTS IRELAND CHALLENGES MASS SURVEILLANCE LAWS

Irish civil rights group Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) has started a High Court action against the Irish Government challenging new European and Irish laws requiring mass surveillance. DRI Chairman TJ McIntyre said:

These laws require telephone companies and internet service providers to spy on all customers, logging their movements, their telephone calls, their emails, and their internet access, and to store that information for up to three years. This information can then be accessed without any court order or other adequate safeguard. We believe that this is a breach of fundamental rights. We have written to the Government raising our concerns but, as they have failed to take any action, we are now forced to start legal proceedings.

Accordingly, we have now launched a legal challenge to the Irish government’s power to pass these laws. We say that it is contrary to the Irish Constitution as well as Irish and European Data Protection laws.

We also challenge the claim that the European Commission and Parliament had the power to enact the Data Retention Directive. We say that this kind of mass surveillance is a breach of Human Rights, as recognised in the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights which all EU member states have endorsed.

If we are successful, the effect will be to undermine Data Retention laws in all EU states, not just Ireland, and to overturn the Data Retention Directive. A ruling from the European Court of Justice that Data Retention is contrary to Human Rights will be binding on all member states, their courts and the EU institutions.

Attack on Private Life

He continued:

These mass surveillance laws are a direct, deliberate attack on our right to have a private life, without undue interference by the government. That right is underpinned in the laws of European countries and is also explicitly stated in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Article specifies that public authorities may only interfere with this right in narrowly defined circumstances.

The information will be collected and stored on everyone, regardless of whether you are a criminal, a policeman, a journalist, a judge, or an ordinary citizen. Once collected, this information is wide open to misappropriation and misuse. No evidence has been produced to suggest that data retention laws will do anything to stop terrorism or organized crime.

We accept, of course, that law-enforcement agencies should have access to some call data. But access must be proportionate. In particular, there should be clear evidence of a need to move beyond the six months of storage which is already used for billing purposes. Neither the European Commission nor the European police forces have made any case as to why they might require years of data to be retained.

Data Retention, as legislated for in Ireland and mandated by the Data Retention Directive is unjustified mass surveillance. The government is deliberately recording information about innocent citizens without cause.


Legal background

The action challenges the law on data retention contained in the Irish Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act, 2005 and the European Data Retention Directive passed in 2006. The action has been commenced in the High Court by McGarr solicitors on behalf of DRI and names as defendants the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Garda Commissioner, Ireland and the Attorney General. DRI will ask the Irish courts to refer the Directive to the European Court of Justice for a decision on whether it is valid.

International Support

Digital Rights Ireland is the only group bringing a challenge to these laws, but it is supported by many international privacy and civil rights groups. Danny O’Brien of the leading group Electronic Frontier Foundation said:

The EU Data Retention Directive is an excessive invasion of the privacy and security of all Europeans. Mandatory recording and retention of European citizens’ telephone calls by telephone companies and their online behaviour by Internet Service Providers creates a precedent for mass surveillance and is likely to chill freedom of expression on political and social issues that are at the very core of a well-functioning democracy. Digital Rights Ireland’s legal challenge to the directive will help protect not only the fundamental rights of citizens of Europe, but also those of other countries tempted along the same path.

Other organisations supporting the action include Privacy International, the European Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, the Czech civil rights group Iuridicum Remedium, Digital Rights (Denmark), the Belgian Liga voor de Mensenrechten (”League for Human Rights”), Electronic Frontier Finland, the UK Open Rights Group, the Italian group, ALCEI (”Electronic Frontiers Italy”), the French IRIS, the Internet Society - Bulgaria and the Austrian groups VIBE!AT (”Austrian Association for Internet Users”) and Quintessenz.


What can you do to protect your privacy?

We are at the edge of Europe, but our action has profound actions for the whole European Union. We are the only group bringing a legal challenge and we need your support. We need support on a number of fronts:

- We need you to spread the word. If you have a web site or blog tell your readers about mass surveillance and link to us.

- In particular, it is important that we get European-wide blogger and media coverage for this launch. If you can help with this please ask to be added to our press list. Email us at contact@digitalrights.ie.

- And of course we need money. We need to raise a significant amount of money to sustain the litigation. Every small contribution makes a big difference. Please make a contribution at http://www.digitalrights.ie/support, and please contact us if you know of someone willing to make a major contribution.

http://www.digitalrights.ie/2006/09/14/dri-brings-legal-action-over-mass-surveillance/

Nick_oliveri

I cant believe no one has replied to this yet. Nobody should have this sort of data collected on them. And they know the location of you and your mobile at all times? Screw those assholes.

layke

This Irish gov are only too happy to get away with this sort of ****e on a regular basis and we keep letting them. Fair play to DI for putting the brakes on them, now hopefully all will go well. Considering how easy it is for any person in this country to find out who you are and where you live already something like this scares me.

Solair

People fundementally don't understand what data's being retained. That's the whole problem! There's a general ignorance about the issue.

If the Government suggested that they were going to direct An Post to open every letter and have them photocopy them and put them into a special file just in case the Gardai should need to view them during the course of an investigation in case you were posting anything illegal, breeching copyright etc etc. there would be absolute uproar and the Government would be in deep trouble.

Effectively, that's exactly what they're doing with emails / electronic traffic. The problem is that people don't understand what's going on and it's not being communicated effectively.

Also, there is a strange paranoia about the internet out there. It's just a communication medium!

TJM

Solair wrote:

Effectively, that's exactly what they're doing with emails / electronic traffic. The problem is that people don't understand what's going on and it's not being communicated effectively.

Help us out. Blog this. Tell your friends. If they wonder why it matters, remind them that Twink's voicemail ended up spread all over the Internet, and if we allow data retention then details of their phone calls and emails might be next. Ultimately DRI is depending on the boards-type constituency - the technically literate - to spread the word amongst the less technically inclined who might be wondering what all the fuss is about.

lostexpectation

Loved seeing the Digital Rights Ireland V The Minister for Justice and Law Reform, The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and The Garda Commissioner on the document.

I think when the something next happens you should press release a image of that.

and blog a descriptions of going to the court that day or whatever, be descriptive, don't need to tell you subject matter is bit dry.

Solair

What worries me is that this stuff is all being driven by a sort of paranoid agenda that is being fanned by the people who sell the hardware / software systems that sift through all of this data. It seems that every security issue is now being solved by yet more IT sollutions. ID cards, data mining, profiling, etc etc.

I really don't feel that our politicans fully understand the implications of the act as they are generally about as IT savvy as your average old age pensioner. They're meerly following the advice of "experts".

It's also clear that there's little or no public interest in the issue as people are simply unaware of the impending problem.

The second IT jargon gets uttered eyes simply glaze over.

Punter-friendly simple communication is absolutely key!

thebman

Solair wrote:

People fundementally don't understand what data's being retained. That's the whole problem!

I disagree, the whole problem is most people don't realise there is any data being retained about them. Most of the people I know, don't know until I tell them.

From the first time I saw that the government was doing this, I was appalled.

I didn't think this was a police state, mainly due to the lack of garda presence on the road I supposed.