UK Seeks To Build Archive Of Internet, Phone Records

by Stefania Bianchi

(IPS) -- The European Union (EU) interior ministers meeting in Brussels, just six days after the London bombings, agreed to improve police cooperation and information sharing between EU member states, find out what makes people turn to terror, and review shipping and aviation security.

The emergency meeting was called in direct response to last week's attacks in London which killed at least 52 people and injured some 700.

Ministers also pledged to agree common standards for security features and procedures for issuing identity cards, as well as rules to combat terror financing.

Some measures raised privacy issues, such as forcing European companies to store phone and internet records, giving police access to such data and advancing a proposal on air passenger name records.

British home secretary Charles Clarke chaired the meeting. Britain holds EU presidency over the second half of the year.

Clarke told media representatives shortly after the summit that ministers had agreed "a very strong statement to say that all of us across the European Union are absolutely determined to accelerate our work to make terrorism more difficult."

He said: "All of us across the European Union are absolutely determined to accelerate our work to make terrorism more difficult. There was a determination for all our countries to say we cannot delay getting this right."

Clarke said progress had been made on agreeing the "substance" of plans to force European phone and internet firms to keep records of calls, text messages and e-mails.

"The statement focuses around a wide range of different exchanges of data and information, whether on stolen explosives or communications data or operational cooperation between different forces. We are saying today that we have to do better," he said.

Also agreed at the summit were measures to share more information on lost and stolen explosives, tackling terrorist finances, including new laws on wire transfers of money and measures against money laundering.

None of the measures are new; they are included in priorities agreed by EU leaders at their June summit for the second half of 2005.

A similar gathering of EU interior ministers was held after March 2004's Madrid bombings which killed 191 people. That meeting led to the faster implementation of the European Arrest Warrant and boosted the sharing of police information to stop future attacks.

Speaking to media representatives before the summit, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned that all EU member states are at risk from a terror attack.

"We know that the threat that has struck London can strike again. It can strike anywhere in our member states at any time. In response to this threat against our common values, the European Union will stand together ever closer and intensify our mutual support and assistance," he said.

However some civil rights groups say the new measures will compromise the rights of European citizens.

Statewatch, a British civil liberties organization, has said that current proposals for data retention are "legally flawed and open to legal challenge." The group says the measures "will put everyone in the EU under surveillance, be used to tackle crime in general and potentially could be used for social and political control."

In a statement Wednesday, Tony Bunyan, director of Statewatch said: "It is understandable that governments want to respond to the tragedy but to put in place a system that: makes everyone in the EU a "suspect", which is potentially open to misuse and abuse, and which has no data protection provisions at all would seriously undermine the democracy that is being defended."

The fight against terrorism has been on the EU's agenda since 1997 but concerted action only began after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

The March 2004 bombings in Madrid provided new momentum with the appointment Dutchman Gijs de Vries as first EU counter terrorism coordinator, to take charge of coordination among all its 25 member states.

Britain now wants to ensure that the July attacks in London prompt another step forward.

An existing EU counter terrorism action plan has 150 items ranging from putting biometric details in passports to civil defence. The EU's role is to coordinate the actions of national governments rather than to take action against terrorists.

Priorities for the second half of 2005, which were agreed at the European Council in June, include agreement on a European evidence warrant, making evidence gathered in one EU member state valid in the courts of others; an action plan to hinder terrorist recruitment, including dialogue between religions, and assistance for non EU countries to strengthen anti terrorism forces.

Since the London bombings many European countries have stepped up security levels in their own countries.

France Spain and the Czech Republic placed themselves on high states of alert while Hungary evacuated two trade centres following the attacks.

Italy, which fears that it will be the next country to be attacked, said July 12 it will introduce new anti terrorist measures.

These new measures, which need to be approved by the Parliament, include doubling to 24 hours the time suspects can be kept in custody without charge, interrogating suspects without lawyers present, and strengthening of measures to prevent terrorists from financing their operations.