8.2 Judicial cooperation in criminal matters – Page 14 – European Area of Freedom Security & Justice

(S. PEERS) BRINGING THE PANOPTICON HOME: THE UK JOINS THE SCHENGEN INFORMATION SYSTEM

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON EU LAW ANALYSIS blog

BY Steve Peers

Over two hundred years ago, British philosopher Jeremy Bentham devised the concept of the ‘Panopticon’: a prison designed so that a jailer could in principle watch any prisoner at any time. His theory was that the mere possibility of constant surveillance would induce good behaviour in prison inmates. In recent years, his idea for a panopticon has become a form of shorthand for describing developments of mass surveillance and social control.

The EU’s forays in this area began with the creation of the Schengen Information System (SIS) in the 1990s. The SIS is a well-known EU-wide database containing enormous amounts of information used by policing, immigration and criminal law authorities.

Until now, the UK has not had any access to the SIS. But this week, the EU Council finally approved the UK’s participation in the System, thereby linking the EU’s most iconic database with the intellectual home of the panopticon theory. What are the specific consequences and broader context of this decision?

Background

The main purpose of the Schengen system is to abolish internal border checks between EU Member States, as well as some associated non-EU States. At the moment, the full Schengen rules apply to all EU Member States except the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. Those rules also apply to four associates: Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

All of the Member States are obliged ultimately to become part of the Schengen system, except for the UK and Ireland. Those two Member States negotiated an exemption in the form of a special Protocol at the time when the Schengen rules (which originated in theSchengen Convention, ie a treaty drawn up outside the EU legal order) were integrated into the EU legal system, as part of the Treaty of Amsterdam (in force 1999).

The UK and Ireland are not entirely excluded from the Schengen system. In fact, they negotiated the option to apply to join only some of the Schengen rules if they wished. Their application has to be approved by the Council, acting unanimously. The UK and Ireland essentially chose to opt in to the Schengen rules concerning policing and criminal law, including the SIS, but not the rules concerning the abolition of internal border controls and the harmonisation of rules on external borders and short-term visas.

The UK’s application to this end was approved in 2000 (see Decision here), and Ireland’s was approved in 2002 (see Decision here). But in order to apply each Decision in practice, a separate subsequent Council decision was necessary, because the Schengen system cannot be extended before extensive checks to see whether the new participant is capable of applying the rules in practice. On that basis, most of the Schengen rules which apply to the UK have applied from the start of 2005 (see Decision, after later amendments, here). The exception is the rules on the SIS, which the UK was not then ready to apply. After spending considerable sums trying to link to the SIS, the UK gave up trying to do so, on the basis that the EU was anyway planning to replace the SIS with a second-generation system (SIS II). There’s a lot of further background detail in the House of Lords report on the UK’s intention to join the SIS (see here), on which I was a special advisor. (Note that Ireland does not apply any of the Schengen rules in practice yet).

It took ages for the EU to get SIS II up and running, and it finally accomplished this task by April 2013 (see Decision here). The UK had planned to join SIS II shortly after it became operational, but this was complicated by the process of opting out of EU criminal law and policing measures adopted before the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, and simultaneously opting back in to some of them again, on December 1^st 2014 (see discussion of that process here). This included an opt back in to the SIS rules.

Once that particular piece of political theatre concluded its final act, the EU and the UK returned to the business of sorting out the UK’s opt in to SIS II in practice. This week’sdecision completed that process, giving the UK access to SIS II data starting from March 1^st. The UK can actually use that data, and enter its own data into the SIS, from April 13^th.

Consequences

What exactly does participation in the SIS entail? The details of the system are set out in the 2007 Decision which regulates the use of SIS II for policing and criminal law purposes. There are also separate Regulations governing the use of SIS II for immigration purposesand giving access to SIS II data for authorities which register vehicles. The former Regulation provides for the storage of ‘alerts’ on non-EU citizens who should in principle be denied a visa or banned from entry into the EU, while the latter Regulation aims to ensure that vehicles stolen from one Member State are not registered in another one. The UK participates in the latter Regulation, but not the former, since it could only have access to Schengen immigration alerts if it fully participated in the Schengen rules on the abolition of internal border controls. On current plans, this will happen when hell freezes over.

The SIS II Decision provides for sharing ‘alerts’ on five main categories of persons or things: persons wanted for arrest for surrender or extradition purposes (mainly linked to the European Arrest Warrant); missing persons; persons sought to assist with a judicial procedure; persons and objects who should be subject to discreet checks or specific checks (ie police surveillance); and objects for seizure or use as evidence in criminal proceedings. There are also rules on the exchange of supplementary information between law enforcement authorities after a ‘hit’. For instance, if the UK authorities find that a European Arrest Warrant has been issued for a specific person, they could ask for further details from the authority which issued it.

On the other hand, the SIS does not, as is sometimes thought, provide for a basis for sharing criminal records or various other categories of criminal law data, although the EU has set up some other databases or information exchange systems dealing with such other types of data. (On criminal records in particular, see my earlier blog post here). The main point of setting up the second-generation system was to extend the SIS to new Member States (although in the end a new system wasn’t actually necessary for that purpose), and to provide for new functionalities such as storing fingerprints, which will likely be put into effect in the near future.

In practice, the UK’s participation in SIS II is likely to result in the Crown Prosecution Service receiving more European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) to process, and in more efficient processing of EAWs which the UK has issued to other Member States. It will also be easier, for instance, to check on whether a car or passport stolen in the UK has ended up on the continent, or vice versa.

Broader context

As noted already, while the UK is only now joining the SIS, the System has been around for many years, and has proved to be the precursor of many EU measures in this field. Indeed, as EU surveillance measures go, the SIS turned out to be a ‘gateway drug’: the friendly puff that led inexorably to the crack den of the data retention Directive.

Of course, interferences with the right to privacy can be justified on the basis of the public interest in enforcement of criminal law and ensuring public safety – if the interference is proportionate and in accordance with the law. Compared to (for instance) the data retention Directive and the planned passenger name records system, the SIS is highly targeted, focussing only on those individuals involved in the criminal law process, or police surveillance, or banned from entry from the EU’s territory. The legitimacy of the system therefore depends upon the accuracy and legality of the personal data placed in to it, and the connected data protection rules. On this point, the EU and national data protection supervisors have reported that many data subjects do not even know about the data held on them in SIS II, and they have produced a guide to help them with accessing their data in the system.

There’s an inevitable tension between the EU’s goal to set the world’s highest data protection standards, on the one hand, while also developing multiple huge databases, information exchange systems and surveillance laws, on the other. It’s as if the brains of the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham and the libertarian John Stuart Mill were both battling for control of the same body – forcing it to draw up plans for the Panopticon at the same time as it was storming the Bastille. If this tension manifested itself in fiction, it would probably take the form of a comedy about a vegetarian butcher, or a virgin porn star. But the need to ensure that measures to protect our security do not remove all our liberty is not a laughing matter.

*This blog post is linked to ongoing research on the upcoming 4^th edition of EU Justice and Home Affairs Law (forthcoming, OUP).

Image credit: nytimes.com

Barnard & Peers: chapter 25

Posted by Steve Peers at 23:48 No comments:

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Labels: criminal law, data protection, databases, opt-outs, right to privacy, Schengen, Schengen Information System, United Kingdom

Friday, 6 February 2015

Rights, remedies and state immunity: the Court of Appeal judgment in Benkharbouche and Janah

Steve Peers

Yesterday’s important judgment in Benkharbouche v Sudan and Janah v Libya by the Court of Appeal raised important issues of public international law, the ECHR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and demonstrated the relationship between them in the current state of the British constitution. The case involved two domestic workers bringing employment law complaints against the respective embassies of Sudan and Libya, which responded to the complaints by claiming state immunity, based on a UK Act of Parliament (the State Immunity Act) which transposes a Council of Europe Convention on that issue.

The question is whether invoking state immunity for these employment claims amounted to a breach of human rights law, given that Article 6 of the ECHR (the right to a fair trial) guarantees access to the courts, according to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). In turn, this raised issues of EU law, given that Article 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights likewise guarantees the right to a fair trial, and some of the claims concerned EU law issues (the race discrimination and working time Directives). (Other claims, such as for ordinary wages and unfair dismissal, were not linked to EU law). The two cases didn’t concern human trafficking or modern slavery, although sometimes embassies are involved in such disputes too. But they would be relevant by analogy to such disputes, and there would also be a link to EU law in such cases, since there is an EU Directive banning human trafficking, which the UK has opted in to.

The Court of Appeal, essentially following the prior judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, made a careful study of recent ECtHR case law, concluding that state immunity could no longer be invoked against all employment law claims, but only against those claims concerning core embassy staff. This could not apply to domestic workers; Ms. Janah’s tasks did not involve (for instance) shooting any British policewomen.

But what was the remedy for this breach of human rights principles? At lower levels, the tribunals had been powerless to rule on the claims for breach of the ECHR, since the UK’sHuman Rights Act awards the power to issue a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ that an Act of Parliament breaches the ECHR to higher courts only. So the Court of Appeal was the first court that could issue such a declaration, and it did so in this case. (The Court concluded that it could not ‘read down’ the relevant clauses in the State Immunity Act to interpret them consistently with the ECHR).

However, as compared to the effect of EU law, even a declaration of incompatibility with the ECHR is relatively weak, given that the potential remedy for a breach of EU law is the disapplication of national law, even Acts of Parliament if necessary, by the national courts. So the Court of Appeal also ruled that the relevant provisions of the State Immunity Acthad to be disapplied, to the extent that they were applied as a barrier to the claims based on EU law. On this point, the Court was following the Employment Appeal Tribunal, which had also ruled to disapply the Act, given that any level of national court or tribunal has the power to disapply an act of parliament if necessary to give effect to EU law.

If I had a pound for every law student who has confused the remedies in UK law for the breach of EU law with the remedies for the breach of the ECHR, I would be very rich indeed. Fortunately, the facts of this case easily demonstrate the distinction between them. Only the higher courts could even contemplate issuing a declaration of incompatibility with the ECHR; and the remedy of disapplication of the Act of Parliament is obviously stronger than the declaration of incompatibility, allowing the case to proceed on the merits (as far as it relates to EU law) rather than having to wait for Parliament to change the law in order to do so. And equally, the case shows the importance of the requirement that a case has to be linked to EU law in order for the Charter to apply: only the race discrimination and working time claims benefit from the disapplication of provisions of the Act of Parliament, and so only those claims can proceed to court as things stand.

From an EU law perspective, the most interesting point examined by the Court of Appeal was the application of the ‘horizontal direct effect’ of Charter rights, ie the application of EU law against private parties (since non-EU States aren’t bound by EU law as States, the court assimilated them to private parties). In its judgment last year in AMS (discussedhere), the CJEU distinguished between those Charter rights which could give rise to a challenge against national law based on the principle of supremacy of EU law, and those Charter rights which could not, since they were too imprecise to base a free-standing Charter claim upon. The right to non-discrimination on grounds of age fell within the former category, whereas the right of workers to be consulted and informed fell within the latter category. (Note that the CJEU case law classifies this as an application of the principle of supremacy, not horizontal direct effect, although the final outcome is the same no matter how the principle is classified, at least in cases like these).

The Court of Appeal reaches the conclusion that Article 47 of the Charter is also a provision which is precise enough to be used to challenge national legislation. That’s an important point, since Article 47 is a far-reaching and frequently invoked provision, and applies not just to state immunity issues but to many broader issues concerning access to the courts (including legal aid) and effective remedies. For that reason, this judgment is an important precedent for national courts across the European Union faced with challenges to national laws based on Article 47 of the Charter, although of course it doesn’t formally bind any court besides the lower courts of England and Wales.

The Court didn’t need to rule on whether the substantive Charter rights raised by these cases would have the effect of disapplying national law, since it wasn’t ruling on the merits of the cases, but only on the issue of access to court. If it were ruling on the substantive issues, it would seem obvious that race discrimination claims have the same strong legal effect as age discrimination claims, as both claims are based on the same provision of the Charter (Article 21). However, claims based on breach of Article 31 of the Charter (the working time provision) might not have that strong legal effect. Indeed, an Advocate-General’s opinion in the pending case of Fennoll has concluded as much.

Furthermore, the social rights in the Charter (such as the rights set out in Article 31) are subject to a special rule in the Protocol to the EU Treaties which attempts to limit the effect of the Charter in the UK and Poland. The CJEU ruled in its NS judgment that this Protocol does not generally disapply the Charter in the UK, but it did not then rule if the Protocol might nonetheless affect the enforceability of social rights. Given that yesterday’s judgment was about Article 47 of the Charter, not about a substantive social right, it was not necessary for the Court of Appeal to grasp this nettle either.

Barnard & Peers: chapter 9, chapter 20

Videosurveillance and privacy in a transatlantic perspective

by Fiammetta Berardo (1)

The following article aims at illustrating how the creation of “societies under surveillance”, whose instruments reshape all people’s life, had started well before September the 11th. For instance within the USA in 1978 an investigation on the privacy violations committed in the course of foreign intelligence surveillance programmes had been leading to the adoption of a special law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA. The attacks to the Twin Towers have been offering the context and the casualty for an improvement in quality and intensity. For some political forces or for some economic actors this was an extraordinary opportunity to further develop programmes, ideas (for instance John Ashcroft’s projects previous to September the 11th) or already existing technologies in the field of mass surveillance.

Introduction

Videosurveillance and other surveillance techniques are now used as a tool in the fight against international terrorism worldwide. In Europe measures used in the fight against terrorism that interfere with privacy (in particular body searches, house searches, bugging, telephone tapping, surveillance of correspondence and use of undercover agents) must be provided for by law. But it must be possible to challenge the lawfulness of these measures before a Court.

For instance, with regard to wiretapping, it must be done in conformity with the provisions of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, notably it must be done in accordance with the law. The adoption of such tools has then to be balanced with the right to privacy. The author tries to sum up the main privacy concerns surveillance techniques and mainly videosurveillance do raise in order to question whether the adoption of these tools in the fight against international terrorism has been challenging such a fundamental right.

Videosurveillance in the United States of America as a response to international terrorism Continue reading “Videosurveillance and privacy in a transatlantic perspective”

“Lisbonisation” of Europol and Eurojust : an in depth analysis for the European Parliament

The inter-agency cooperation and future architecture of the EU criminal justice and law enforcement area

Upon request by the LIBE Committee, the study aims at analysing the current relationship and foreseeable cooperation between several EU agencies and bodies: Europol, Eurojust, the European Anti-Fraud Office, the European Judicial Network and the future European Public Prosecutor’s Office. The study reflects on their cooperation regarding the fight against serious transnational crime and the protection of the European Union’s financial interests. It also identifies good practices and difficulties and suggests possible ways of improvements. AUTHORS Prof. Anne Weyemberg, Université Libre de Bruxelles and Coordinator of the European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN) Mrs Inés Armada, PhD researcher, VUB-ULB, FWO Fellow Mrs Chloé Brière, GEM PhD researcher, ULB – UNIGE

BELOW THE TEXT OF PAGES 8-26. THE FULL STUDY IS AVAILABLE HERE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Context of the study

For the time being, there are 9 JHA decentralised agencies: 6 depending from DG Home, namely EUROPOL, CEPOL, FRONTEX, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and the EU Agency for large-scale IT systems (Eu-LISA) and 3 depending from DG Justice, namely Eurojust, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).

Besides the agencies, some other EU bodies/networks, which do not have the agency status, are to be mentioned, such as the EU Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European judicial network (EJN) or the European judicial training network (EJTN). Others are yet to be established, the main one on its way being the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).

Complementarity, consistency and a good articulation between all these bodies is crucial if the purpose is to establish a consistent Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) and effectively implement its three components. A good articulation between the EU bodies is also crucial to develop a multidisciplinary approach in the fight against serious cross-border crime.

This need has been repeatedly underlined, particularly by EU institutions1. A better delineation or a clearer definition of each EU agency/body’s competences and functions has been requested. Overlaps are however inevitable (i.e., grey zones) and may even present advantages. The key issue lies in learning how to manage them in good will and good faith. The key word here must be complementarity, which implies working hand in hand for the realisation of common goals, respect of respective mandates and expertise and good communication and coordination in case of overlap. Establishing such complementarity might prove a difficult task, and this for different reasons:

– The different agencies and bodies have been established at different times, in different contexts and in various decisional frameworks. The current agencies/bodies belong to different generations and are more or less mature, the three oldest being OLAF (ex-UCLAF), Europol and the EJN. Some of them are still under the pressure of figures, still fighting/struggling or feeling they have to fight/struggle to justify their existence and prove their added-value.

– The different agencies and bodies are driven/marked by different philosophies/natures/logics: for instance, OLAF has an EC nature, with real « autonomous »/supranational administrative powers, whereas Europol and Eurojust are still marked by the « intergovernmental third pillar spirit » and constitute « service providers » depending on the final decision taken by national authorities;

– They are also marked by differences in professional cultures, be it administrative, police, or judicial;

– Their structure differs (e.g. very different organisation/structure within Europol and Eurojust);

– The resources/means available to each of them are different. Some agencies/bodies are more powerful than others, including in the field of policy orientation. For instance, the major role played by Europol in the design of the EU Internal Security Strategy (ISS) and in the EU policy cycle must be mentioned.

– The articulation between the EU agencies/bodies must accommodate the differences between the different national criminal justice systems. These include the different distribution of competences/tasks between the administrative/criminal, police/justice and police/intelligence services. The treaty imposes respect to such differences, with the result that the EU agencies/bodies must be able to adapt to all the concerned systems. Thus, there is a need to remain vague in the definition of mandates/tasks and to safeguard flexibility. Such vagueness might however make more difficult a good articulation and relationship between the bodies concerned.

– The abovementioned difficulties result in a lack of a consistent vision of the EU area of criminal justice, which is somehow to be built/organised a posteriori. The fact that the different EU agencies/bodies are dealt with by different DGs within the Commission (that do not always entertain the best relations) and the silo approach taken by the General Secretariat of the Council2 clearly do not improve the situation.

– Against this background, the legislative instruments governing each EU agency/body remain quite vague with regard to cooperation with counterparts. Interagency relations are thus mostly left to the EU agencies/bodies themselves.

– Last but not least, the importance of personal relations must be stressed. Sometimes people understand each other and sometimes they do not…

Generally speaking, an improvement in the relations between the EU agencies/bodies has been witnessed, due to the conclusion/revision of bilateral agreements/memorandum of understandings and to the passage of time and the consequent gain of experience.

Such improvement is also due to other reasons such as the creation of coordination/monitoring mechanisms and the encouragement of inter-agency cooperation in the JHA field.

It has especially taken the form of the JHA contact group and the JHA Heads of Agencies meetings. They annually report to the Standing Committee on operational cooperation on internal security (COSI)3, notably through a scorecard on cooperation, which is annexed to the annual report.

However, and in spite of a lot of quite positive official declarations, difficulties remain. Identifying them is the main purpose of this study, in order to suggest, where possible, ways of improvement. Continue reading ““Lisbonisation” of Europol and Eurojust : an in depth analysis for the European Parliament”

Trafficking in Human Beings: the EU legislates but the Member States keep dragging their feet…

by Federica VIGNALE (Free Group Trainee)

Since more than ten years Trafficking in Human beings is a recurrent issue on the agenda of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. The last debate [i] was notably focused on the Commission Mid-term report on the 2012-2016 EU strategy towards the eradication of trafficking in human beings and the Global Report on Trafficking in persons of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Trafficking in Human Beings (THB) is recognized by the European and the international law as a gross violation of human rights and as a form of organized crime[ii]. At European level, THB is defined as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or reception of persons, including the exchange or transfer of control over those persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”. Furthermore, due to the presence of these forms of violence or coercion, trafficking in human beings represents also a form of modern slavery. Currently there are tens of thousands potential people who are kept in captivity or forced to provide services against their will, but there are some people who were lucky enough to have been identified.

In this respect and before analysing the European and the international legal context, it is worthwhile analysing the data related to victims and traffickers that emerge from the Trafficking in Human Beings Report that the DG Home Affairs and Eurostat published on the occasion of the EU Anti-Trafficking day anniversary. Between 2010 and 2012, 30.146 people were registered by the authorities, but this number is more alarming if we consider that there are certainly other victims of THB that have not been registered. The above-mentioned Report indicates also that:

“80 % of registered victims were female.
Over 1 000 child victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation^{^[iii]}.
69 % of registered victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation.
95 % of registered victims of sexual exploitation were female.
71 % of registered victims of labour exploitation were male.
65 % of registered victims were EU citizens.
There are no discernible trends in the variation of victim data at EU level over the three reference years.
8 551 prosecutions for trafficking in human beings were reported by Member States over the three years 2010-2012.
Over 70 % of traffickers were male. This is the case for suspects, prosecutions and convicted traffickers.
3 786 convictions for trafficking in human beings were reported by Member States over the three years.
There are no discernible trends in the number of prosecutions or convictions at EU level”.

Two thirds of the victims are from the countries within the EU (Romania, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Hungary and Poland), and the rest of the victims are primarily from Nigeria, China, Vietnam, Brazil and Russia. These figures are extremely worrying, especially because – in terms of legislation – the EU has built a very ambitious legal framework that consists of: Continue reading “Trafficking in Human Beings: the EU legislates but the Member States keep dragging their feet…”

Terrorists and serious criminals beware ! Your travel data can tell everything about you..

by Emilio DE CAPITANI

After the last terrorist attacks the President of The European Council, the EU interior ministers, the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator (CTC), the European Commission, some national parliaments and even the press have raised their voice against the European Parliament which is blocking since years a legislative measure on the access by law enforcement authorities to the passenger name record (PNR) managed by the airlines when you make a flight reservation.
Beware!
PNR data are not used to find criminals or already known dangerous persons.
This will be a too easy solution but will require a change in the Member state internal security policy. Member states remain extremely jealous of their security related data. According to the current EU legislation (and the Europol revised proposal) data dealing with already known criminals, terrorists, serial killers dangerous persons remain under the control of each national authority which can share them with other EU member States and EU agencies, (such as Europol and Eurojust), only on voluntary basis.

On the contrary PNR data of ordinary citizens could be mandatory collected from airlines and shared to a enable Law enforcement authorities “..to identify persons who were previously “unknown”, i.e. persons previously unsuspected of involvement in terrorism or serious crime, but whom an analysis of the data suggests may be involved in such crime and who should therefore be subject to further examination by the competent authorities.”

The (non exhaustive) list of “serious crimes” which according to the Council and the Commission can be prevented thanks to these miraculous bits of information is indeed impressive :
1. participation in a criminal organisation, 2. trafficking in human beings, 3. sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, 4. illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, 5. illicit trafficking in weapons, munitions and explosives, 6. fraud, 7. laundering of the proceeds of crime, 8. computer-related crime,9. environmental crime, including illicit trafficking in endangered animal species and in endangered plant species and varieties, 10. facilitation of unauthorised entry and residence, 11. illicit trade in human organs and tissue, 12. kidnapping, illegal restraint and hostage-taking, 13. organised and armed robbery, 14. illicit trafficking in cultural goods, including antiques and works of art, 15. forgery of administrative documents and trafficking therein, 16. illicit trafficking in hormonal substances and other growth promoters, 17. illicit trafficking in nuclear or radioactive materials, 18. unlawful seizure of aircraft/ships, 19. sabotage, and 20. trafficking in stolen vehicles.

But which kind of data are so meaningful that they to reveal such diverse kinds of criminal behavior ?

The (again, non exhaustive) list of these data is attached to the draft Directive and is as follows:
(1) PNR record locator (2) Date of reservation/issue of ticket (3) Date(s) of intended travel (4) Name(s) (5) Address and contact information (telephone number, e-mail address) (6) All forms of payment information, including billing address (7) Complete travel itinerary for specific PNR (8) Frequent flyer information (9) Travel agency/travel agent (10) Travel status of passenger, including confirmations, check-in status, no show or go show information (11) Split/divided PNR information (12) General remarks (including all available information on unaccompanied minors under 18 years, such as name and gender of the minor, age, language(s) spoken, name and contact details of guardian on departure and relationship to the minor, name and contact details of guardian on arrival and relationship to the minor, departure and arrival agent) (13) Ticketing field information, including ticket number, date of ticket issuance and one-way tickets, Automated Ticket Fare Quote fields (14) Seat number and other seat information (15) Code share information (16) All baggage information (17) Number and other names of travellers on PNR (18) Any Advance Passenger Information (API) data collected (inter alia document type, document number, nationality, country of issuance, date of document expiration, family name, given name, gender, date of birth, airline, flight number, departure date, arrival date, departure port, arrival port, departure time, arrival time) (19) All historical changes to the PNR listed in numbers 1 to 18.

The draft Council text allows Member States also to collect other personal data if they so wish. (Guess if also the place of birth was added it would be possible to know also the Astrological profile and we all know after thousand years of consistent scientific observation that people with the sun or ascendant in Scorpio can be extremely dangerous..)

On this basis You still consider that this “machinery” deemed to filter millions a record a day by 28 different Passenger Unit in the member states without a meaningful judicial control and storing them for five years is not only an abuse of fundamental rights of millions of passengers, but is also contrary to the freedom of movement protected by the Treaty and the Charter, and is disproportionate? Moreover is contrary to the rule of law principle discriminatory because data on passengers will differ simply because of the different methods followed by each airline when dealing with their reservation systems?

Do you still think that such a machinery which in the US is backed by an intelligence counter terrorism endeavor of hundred billion dollars per year, will work in countries where police has hardly the resource to pay the petrol for their cars and were the first reflex is not to share “its” criminal records with the other member states and even less with EU agencies (which also stand side by side only for the family photo of the annual budget before the European Parliament) ?

In this framework would not be much wise, as a matter of priority, for the European Union to prevent and fight terrorism and serious crime by interconnecting the member states criminal record systems and by adding also the data of third country nationals who have already been convicted and condemned in their country for serious crimes?

Do you not consider that 28 national PNR (following each one its own profiling tactics) will be useless at European level where in any case only 2% of the Europol data deal with terrorist and are fed by only 4 of the 28 EU Countries ?

Last but not least, a real terrorist and criminals will not be tempted to avoid all of this by using false documents (easily accessible on internet) or, more safely, by keeping a train ?

Read the text below and (maybe) you will change your mind. But if you still consider that the PNR is the silver bullet to fight terrorists I have a used car that can be of your interest..

——————————————
COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Brussels, 23 April 2012
8916/12
Interinstitutional File: 2011/0023 (COD)
GENVAL 23 AVIATION 73 DATAPROTECT 52 CODEC 1024
NOTE
From: Presidency
to: Council
No. prev. doc.: 8448/1/12 REV 1 GENVAL 17 AVIATI*N 60 DATAPR*TECT 40 C*DEC 897
Subject: Proposal for a Directive of the Council and the European Parliament on the use of
Passenger Name Record data for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime

Background

1. The Commission submitted the proposal for a Council Framework Decision on the use of Passenger Name Record (PNR) for law enforcement purposes to the Council on 17 November 2007. This proposal was discussed in detail during the Slovenian, the French and the Czech Presidency. When the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, the proposal, which was not yet adopted, became legally obsolete.

2. On 3 February 2011 the Commission presented a proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the use of Passenger Name Record data for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime.

3. At the Council meeting on 11 April 2011, a discussion was held on whether intra-EU flights should be included in the scope of the draft Directive. Further to that discussion, the
preparatory work on the draft PNR Directive continued at expert-level at the Working Party on General Matters, including Evaluations on the basis of the indication by the Council that the Directive should allow individual Member States the option to mandate the collection of PNR data with regard to intra-EU flights and that the collection and processing of such data should be subject to the legal regime created by the PNR Directive1.

4. Since the Commission presented its proposal, the Working Party on General Matters, including Evaluations has worked on the proposal for over a year. The scope of the proposal has been thoroughly discussed and further refined and it is now established for which purposes and under which conditions PNR data collected under the Directive can be used. A few Member States have argued in favour of extending the scope of the Directive to other purposes than those presently covered. It is, however, the Presidency’s assessment that a clear and strict purpose limitation is important in order to safeguard the proportionality of the Directive. The Presidency therefore considers that no further changes should be made to the scope of the Directive at the present stage. The review clause in the proposal will, however, allow for future revision of the Directive on the basis of national experiences.

5. The Presidency considers that the extensive work on the file and the considerable efforts that have been made to take all views into account during the Hungarian, Polish and Danish Presidency have resulted in a well-balanced draft Directive.
6. Nine delegations maintain a general scrutiny reservation on the proposal, two have a general reservation and two hold a parliamentary scrutiny reservation.

Retention period

7. The Commission had proposed an initial storage period of 30 days, followed by a further retention period of five years of masked out data. The negotiations have shown that an initial storage period of 30 days is generally considered much too short from an operational point of view. Article 9 has been redrafted in such a way that the overall retention period of 5 years is subdivided into two periods: a first period in which the data are fully accessible and a second period during which the data are masked out and where full disclosure of the data is subject to strict conditions. Taking into consideration the operational needs the initial retention period is set at two years. In comparison the initial retention period in the 2011 EU-Australia Agreement, to which the Council has agreed and the EP has given its consent, is three years.

Inclusion of intra-EU flights

8. Article 1a, which has been drafted in line with the indications given at the Council meeting on 11 April 2011, allows Member States to apply this Directive to all or selected intra-EU flights. Hence, the Article allows any Member State to collect PNR data from those intra-EU flights it considers necessary in order to prevent, detect, investigate or prosecute serious crime or terrorism. It thus constitutes a compromise between those Member States that are in favour of mandatory inclusion of all intra-EU flights and those that are opposed to any inclusion of intra-EU flights.

9. The Presidency considers the above solutions as part of a package, which constitutes a compromise between those Member States which would prefer to limit the impact of the collection and processing of PNR data and those Member States which are in favour of an extension of the scope of the collection and processing of PNR data. At the Coreper meeting of 18 April 2012 some Member States maintained for the time being their reservations on the issues of retention periods and intra-EU flights. However, only three delegations indicated that they could not accept the overall package as a basis for commencing negotiations with the EP.

10. In view of the above, the Presidency invites the Council to confirm the compromise text set out in the Annex as a basis for starting the negotiations with the Parliament.

ANNEX

DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
on the use of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data for the prevention, detection, investigation
and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Articles 82(1)(d) and 87(2)(a) thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,
After transmission of the draft legislative act to the national Parliaments,
Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee2,
Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions3,
Acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure,

Whereas:

(1) On 6 November 2007 the Commission adopted a proposal for a Council Framework Decision on the use of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data for law enforcement purposes. However, upon entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009, the Commission’s proposal, which had not been adopted by the Council by that date, became obsolete.

(2) The `Stockholm Programme An open and secure Europe serving and protecting the citizens’4 calls on the Commission to present a proposal for the use of PNR data to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute terrorism and serious crime.

(3) In its Communication of 21 September 2010 “*n the global approach to transfers of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data to third countries” the Commission outlined certain core elements of a Union policy in this area.

(4) Council Directive 2004/82/EC of 29 April 2004 on the obligation of air carriers to communicate passenger data5 regulates the transfer of advance passenger data by air carriers to the competent national authorities for the purpose of improving border controls and combating illegal immigration.

(5) PNR data are necessary to effectively prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute terrorist offences and serious crime and thus enhance internal security, inter alia by comparing them with various databases of persons and objects sought, to construct evidence and, where relevant, to find associates of criminals and unravel criminal networks.
(6) ….

(7) PNR data enable to identify persons who were previously “unknown”, i.e. persons previously unsuspected of involvement in terrorism or serious crime, but whom an analysis of the data suggests may be involved in such crime and who should therefore be subject to further examination by the competent authorities. By using PNR data it is possible to address the threat of terrorism and serious crime from a different perspective than through the processing of other categories of personal data. However, in order to ensure that the processing of data of innocent and unsuspected persons remains as limited as possible, the aspects of the use of PNR data relating to the creation and application of assessment criteria should be further limited to terrorist offences and relevant forms of serious crime. Furthermore, the assessment criteria shall be defined in a manner which ensures that as few innocent people as possible are identified by the system.

(8) Air carriers already collect and process PNR data from their passengers for their own commercial purposes. This Directive should not impose any obligation on air carriers to collect or retain any additional data from passengers or to impose any obligation on passengers to provide any data in addition to that already being provided to air carriers.

(9) Some air carriers retain any collected advance passenger information (API) data as part of the PNR data, while others do not. The use of PNR data together with API data has added value in assisting Member States in verifying the identity of an individual and thus reinforcing their law enforcement value and minimising the risk of carrying out checks and investigations on innocent people. It is therefore important to ensure that, where air carriers collect API data, they should transfer it, irrespective of whether the API data is retained as part of the PNR data or not.

(10) In order to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute terrorist offences and serious crime, it is essential that all Member States introduce provisions laying down obligations on air carriers operating extra EU-flights, and if the Member State wishes to do so also on air carriers operating intra EU-flights, to transfer any collected PNR and API data. These provisions should be without prejudice to Council Directive 2004/82/EC of 29 April 2004 on the obligation of carriers to communicate passenger data.

(11) The processing of personal data must be proportionate to the specific security goals pursued by this Directive.

(12) The definition of terrorist offences applied in this Directive should be the same as in Council Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA on combating terrorism6 and the definition of serious crime applied in this Directive should be the same as in Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA of 13 June 2002 on the European Arrest Warrant and the surrender procedure between Member States7. The list of relevant serious crime with relation to which PNR data may be used for the creation and application of assessment criteria should be based on Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA.

(13) PNR data should be transmitted to a single designated unit (Passenger Information Unit) in the relevant Member State, so as to ensure clarity and reduce costs to air carriers. The Passenger Information Unit may have different locations in one Member State and Member States may also jointly set up one Passenger Information Unit.

(13a) It is desirable that co-financing of the costs related to the establishment of the national Passenger Information Units will be provided for under the instrument for financial support for police cooperation, preventing and combating crime, and crisis management as part of the Internal Security Fund.

(14) The contents of any lists of required PNR data to be obtained by a Passenger Information Unit should be drawn up with the objective of reflecting the legitimate requirements of public authorities to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute terrorist offences or serious crime, thereby improving internal security within the Union as well as protecting the fundamental rights of persons, notably privacy and the protection of personal data. Such lists should not be based on a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health or sexual life. The PNR data should contain details on the passenger’s reservation and travel itinerary which enable competent authorities to identify air passengers representing a threat to internal security.

(15) There are two possible methods of data transfer currently available: the `pull’ method, under which the competent authorities of the Member State requiring the data can reach into (access) the air carrier’s reservation system and extract (`pull’) a copy of the required data, and the `push’ method, under which air carriers transfer (`push’) the required PNR data to the authority requesting them, thus allowing air carriers to retain control of what data is provided. The `push’ method is considered to offer a higher degree of data protection and should be mandatory for all air carriers.

(16) The Commission supports the International Civil Aviation *rganisation (ICA*) guidelines on PNR. These guidelines should thus be the basis for adopting the supported data formats for transfers of PNR data by air carriers to Member States. This justifies that such supported data formats, as well as the relevant protocols applicable to the transfer of data from air carriers should be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure provided for in Regulation (EU) No182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011 lying down rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers8.

(17) The Member States should take all necessary measures to enable air carriers to fulfil their obligations under this Directive. Dissuasive, effective and proportionate penalties, including financial ones, should be provided for by Member States against those air carriers failing to meet their obligations regarding the transfer of PNR data.

(18) Each Member State should be responsible for assessing the potential threats related to terrorist offences and serious crime.

(19) Taking fully into consideration the right to the protection of personal data and the right to non-discrimination, no decision that produces an adverse legal effect on a person or seriously affects him/her should be taken only by reason of the automated processing of PNR data. Moreover, in respect of Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union no such decision should discriminate on any grounds such as a person’s sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation.

(20) Member States should share with other Member States the PNR data that they receive where this is necessary for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of terrorist offences or serious crime. The provisions of this Directive should be without prejudice to other Union instruments on the exchange of information between police and judicial authorities, including Council Decision 2009/371/JHA of 6 April 2009 establishing the European Police *ffice (Europol)9 and Council Framework Decision 2006/960/JHA of 18 September 2006 on simplifying the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement authorities of the Member States of the European Union10. Such exchange of PNR data between law enforcement and judicial authorities should be governed by the rules on police and judicial cooperation.

(21) The period during which PNR data are to be retained should be proportionate to the purposes of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime. Because of the nature of the data and their uses, it is necessary that the PNR data are retained for a sufficiently long period for carrying out analysis and for use in investigations. In order to avoid disproportionate use, it is necessary that, after an initial period, the data are depersonalised through masking out and that the full PNR data are only accessible under very strict and limited conditions.

(22) Where specific PNR data have been transmitted to a competent authority and are used in the context of specific criminal investigations or prosecutions, the retention of such data by the competent authority should be regulated by the national law of the Member State, irrespective of the retention periods set out in this Directive.

(23) The processing of PNR data domestically in each Member State by the Passenger Information Unit and by competent authorities should be subject to a standard of protection of personal data under their national law which is in line with Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA of 27 November 2008 on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters11.

(24) Taking into consideration the right to the protection of personal data, the rights of the data subjects concerning the processing of their PNR data, such as the right of access, the right of rectification, erasure and blocking, as well as the rights to compensation and judicial remedies, should be in line with Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA.

(25) Taking into account the right of passengers to be informed of the processing of their personal data, Member States should ensure they are provided with accurate information about the collection of PNR data and their transfer to the Passenger Information Unit.

(25a) This Directive allows the principle of public access to official documents to be taken into account.

(26) Transfers of PNR data by Member States to third countries should be permitted only on a case-by-case basis and in compliance with Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA. To ensure the protection of personal data, such transfers should be subject to additional requirements relating to the purpose and the necessity of the transfer.

(27) The national supervisory authority that has been established in implementation of Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA should also be responsible for advising on and monitoring of the application and of the provisions adopted by the Member States pursuant to this Directive.

(28) This Directive does not affect the possibility for Member States to provide, under their domestic law, for a system of collection and handling of PNR data for purposes other than those specified in this Directive, or from transportation providers other than those specified in the Directive, provided that such domestic law respects the Union acquis.

(29) This Directive is without prejudice to the current Union rules on the way border controls are carried out or with the Union rules regulating entry and exit from the territory of the Union.

(30) As a result of the legal and technical differences between national provisions concerning the processing of personal data, including PNR, air carriers are and will be faced with different requirements regarding the types of information to be transmitted, as well as the conditions under which this information needs to be provided to competent national authorities. These differences may be prejudicial to effective cooperation between the competent national authorities for the purposes of preventing, detecting, investigating and prosecuting terrorist offences or serious crime.

(31) Since the objectives of this Directive cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, and can be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.

(32) This Directive respects the fundamental rights and the principles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in particular the right to the protection of personal data, the right to privacy and the right to non-discrimination as protected by Articles 8, 7 and 21 thereof and has to be implemented accordingly. The Directive is compatible with data protection principles and its provisions are in line with the Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA. Furthermore, and in order to comply with the proportionality principle, the Directive, on specific issues, will have stricter rules on data protection than the Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA.

(33) In particular, the scope of this Directive is as limited as possible, as it allows retention of PNR data in the Passenger Information Units for period of time not exceeding 5 years, after which the data should be deleted, as the data should be depersonalised through masking out after an initial period, and as the collection and use of sensitive data is prohibited. In order to ensure efficiency and a high level of data protection, Member States are required to ensure that an independent national supervisory authority is responsible for advising and monitoring the way PNR data are processed. All processing of PNR data should be logged or documented for the purpose of verification of its legality, self-monitoring and ensuring proper data integrity and security of the processing. Member States should also ensure that passengers are clearly and precisely informed about the collection of PNR data and their rights.

(34) In accordance with Article 3 of the Protocol (No 21) on the position of United Kingdom and Ireland in respect of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, annexed to the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, those Member States have notified their wish to participate in the adoption and application of this Directive.
(35) In accordance with Articles 1 and 2 of the Protocol (No 22) on the position of Denmark annexed to the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Denmark is not taking part in the adoption of this Directive and is not bound by it or subject to its application.

HAVE ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE:

CHAPTER I GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1 Subject matter and scope
1. This Directive provides for the transfer by air carriers of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data of passengers of extra-EU flights to and from the Member States, as well as the processing of that data.
2. The PNR data collected in accordance with this Directive may be processed only for the purpose of prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime as provided for in Article 4 (2) (a), (b) and (c).

Article 1a Application of the directive to intra-EU flights
1. If a Member State wishes to apply this Directive to intra-EU flights, it shall give notice in writing to the Commission to that end. The Commission shall publish such a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union. A Member State may give or revoke such notice at any time after the entry into force of this Directive.
2. Where such a notice is given, all the provisions of this Directive shall apply in relation to intra-EU flights as if they were extra-EU flights and to PNR data from intra-EU flights as if it were PNR data from extra-EU flights.
3. A Member State may decide to apply this Directive only to selected intra-EU flights. In making such a decision the Member State shall select the flights it considers necessary in order to further the purposes of this Directive. The Member State may decide to change the selected intra-EU flights at any time.

Article 2 Definitions
For the purposes of this Directive the following definitions shall apply:
(a) `air carrier’ means an air transport undertaking with a valid operating licence or equivalent permitting it to carry out carriage by air of passengers;
(b) `extra-EU flight’ means any scheduled or non-scheduled flight by an air carrier flying from a third country planned to land on the territory of a Member State or from the territory of a Member State planned to land in a third country, including in both cases flights with any stopovers at the territory of Member States or third countries;
(c) `intra-EU flight’ means any scheduled or non-scheduled flight by an air carrier flying from the territory of a Member State planned to land on the territory of one or more of the other Member States, without any stop-overs at the territory/airports of a third country;
(d) `Passenger Name Record’ or’PNR data’ means a record of each passenger’s travel requirements which contains information necessary to enable reservations to be processed and controlled by the booking and participating air carriers for each journey booked by or on behalf of any person, whether it is contained in reservation systems, Departure Control Systems (DCS, the system used to check passengers onto flights) or equivalent systems providing the same functionalities.
(e) `passenger’ means any person, except members of the crew, carried or to be carried in an aircraft with the consent of the air carrier, which is manifested by the persons’ registration in the passengers list and which includes transfer or transit passengers;
(f) `reservation systems’ means the air carrier’s internal reservation system, in which PNR data are collected for the handling of reservations;
(g) `push method’ means the method whereby air carriers transfer PNR data into the database of the authority requesting them;
(h) `terrorist offences’ means the offences under national law referred to in Articles 1 to 4 of Council Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA;
(i) `serious crime’ means the offences under national law referred to in Article 2(2) of Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA if they are punishable by a custodial sentence or a detention order for a maximum period of at least three years under the national law of a Member State;
(k) ‘depersonalising through masking out of data’ means rendering certain data elements of such data invisible to a user without deleting these data elements.

CHAPTER II RESPONSIBILITES OF THE MEMBER STATES

Article 3 Passenger Information Unit
1. Each Member State shall set up or designate an authority competent for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime or a branch of such an authority to act as its `Passenger Information Unit’ (“PIU”) responsible for collecting PNR data from the air carriers, storing them, processing them and transmitting the PNR data or the result of the processing thereof to the competent authorities referred to in Article 5. The PIU is also responsible for the exchange of PNR data or the result of the processing thereof with PIUs of other Member States in accordance with Article 7. Its staff members may be seconded from competent public authorities. It shall be provided with adequate resources in order to fulfil its tasks.

2. Two or more Member States may establish or designate a single authority to serve as their Passenger Information Unit. Such a Passenger Information Unit shall be established in one of the participating Member States and shall be considered the national Passenger Information Unit of all such participating Member States. The participating Member States shall agree on the detailed rules for the operation of the Passenger Information Unit and shall respect the requirements laid down in this Directive.

3. Each Member State shall notify the Commission within one month of the establishment or designation of the Passenger Information Unit thereof. It may at any time modify its notification. The Commission shall publish this information, including any modifications of it, in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Article 4 Processing of PNR data
1. The PNR data transferred by the air carriers shall be collected by the Passenger Information
Unit of the relevant Member State, as provided for in Article 6. Should the PNR data transferred by air carriers include data beyond those listed in Annex I, the Passenger Information Unit shall delete such data immediately upon receipt.
2. The Passenger Information Unit shall process PNR data only for the following purposes:
(a) carrying out an assessment of the passengers prior to their scheduled arrival to or departure from the Member State in order to identify persons who require further examination by the competent authorities referred to in Article 5, in view of the fact that such persons may be involved in a terrorist offence or serious crime.
(i) In carrying out such an assessment the Passenger Information Unit may compare PNR data against databases relevant for the purpose of prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime, including databases on persons or objects sought or under alert, in accordance with Union, international and national rules applicable to such databases.
(ii) When carrying out an assessment of persons who may be involved in a terrorist offence or serious crime listed in Annex II to this Directive, the Passenger Information Unit may also process PNR data against pre-determined criteria.
Member States shall ensure that any positive match resulting from automated processing of PNR data conducted under point (a) of paragraph 2 is individually reviewed by non-automated means in order to verify whether the competent authority referred to in Article 5 needs to take action in accordance with national law;
(b) responding, on a case-by-case basis, to duly reasoned requests from competent authorities to provide PNR data and process PNR data in specific cases for the purpose of prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of a terrorist offence or serious crime, and to provide the competent authorities with the results of such processing; and
(c) analysing PNR data for the purpose of updating or creating new criteria for carrying out assessments referred to point (a) (ii) in order to identify any persons who may be involved in a terrorist offence or serious crimes listed in Annex II.
3. The assessment of the passengers prior to their scheduled arrival or departure from the
Member State carried out against pre-determined criteria referred to in point (a)(ii) of paragraph 2 shall be carried out in a non-discriminatory manner on the basis of assessment criteria established by its Passenger Information Unit. Member States shall ensure that the assessment criteria are set by the Passenger Information Units, in cooperation with the competent authorities referred to in Article 5. The assessment criteria shall in no circumstances be based on a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health or sexual life.
4. The Passenger Information Unit of a Member State shall transmit the PNR data or the results
of the processing of PNR data of the persons identified in accordance with point (a) of paragraph 2 for further examination to the competent authorities of the same Member State referred to in Article 5. Such transfers shall only be made on a case-by-case basis.
5. The consequences of the assessments of passengers referred to in point (a) of paragraph 2
shall not jeopardise the right of entry of persons enjoying the Union right of free movement into the territory of the Member State concerned as laid down in Directive 2004/38/EC. In addition, the consequences of such assessments, where these are carried out in relation to intra-EU flights between Member States to which the Regulation (EC) No 562/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders12 applies, shall comply with that Code.

12 OJ L 105, 13.4.2006, p. 1.

Article 5 Competent authorities
1. Each Member State shall adopt a list of the competent authorities entitled to request or receive PNR data or the result of the processing of PNR data from the Passenger Information Units in order to examine that information further or take appropriate action for the purpose of preventing, detecting, investigating and prosecuting terrorist offences and serious crime.
2. The authorities referred to in paragraph 1 shall be competent for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of terrorist offences or serious crime.
3. For the purpose of Article 7(4), each Member State shall notify the list of its competent authorities to the Commission eighteen months after entry into force of this Directive at the latest, and may at any time update this notification. The Commission shall publish this information, as well as any modifications of it, in the Official Journal of the European Union.
4. The PNR data and the result of the processing of PNR data received from the Passenger Information Unit may be further processed by the competent authorities of the Member States only for the purpose of preventing, detecting, investigating or prosecuting terrorist offences or serious crime.
5. Paragraph 4 shall be without prejudice to national law enforcement or judicial powers where other violations of criminal law, or indications thereof, are detected in the course of enforcement action further to such processing.
6. The competent authorities shall not take any decision that produces an adverse legal effect on a person or significantly affects a person only by reason of the automated processing of PNR data.

Article 6
Obligations on air carriers on transfer of data
1. Member States shall adopt the necessary measures to ensure that air carriers transfer (‘push’) the PNR data as defined in Article 2(d) and specified in Annex I, to the extent that such data are already collected by them, to the database of the Passenger Information Unit of the Member State on the territory of which the flight will land and/or from the territory of which the flight will depart. Where the flight is code-shared between one or more air carriers, the obligation to transfer the PNR data of all passengers on the flight shall be on the air carrier that operates the flight. Where an extra-EU flight has one or more stopovers at the airports of different Member States, air carriers shall transfer the PNR data of all passengers to the Passenger Information Units of all the Member States concerned. This also applies where an intra-EU flight has one or more stopovers at the airports of different Member States, but only in relation to Member States which are collecting PNR data.
1a. In case the air carriers have collected any advance passenger information (API) data listed under item (18) of Annex 1 to this directive but do not retain these data as part of the PNR data, Member States shall adopt the necessary measures to ensure that air carriers also transfer (‘push’) these data to the Passenger Information Unit of the Member State referred to in paragraph 1. In case of such transfer, all the provisions of this Directive shall apply in relation to these API data as if they were part of the PNR data.
2. Air carriers shall transfer PNR data by electronic means using the common protocols and supported data formats to be adopted in accordance with the procedure referred to in Articles 13 and 14, or, in the event of technical failure, by any other appropriate means ensuring an appropriate level of data security:
(a) once 24 to 48 hours before the scheduled time for flight departure; and
(b) once immediately after flight closure, that is once the passengers have boarded the aircraft in preparation for departure and it is no longer possible for passengers to board or leave.
3. Member States shall permit air carriers to limit the transfer referred to in point (b) of paragraph 2 to updates of the transfer referred to in point (a) of paragraph 2.
4. On a case-by-case basis and where access to PNR data is necessary to respond to a specific and actual threat related to terrorist offences or serious crime, air carriers shall, upon request from a Passenger Information Unit in accordance with the procedures provided under national law, transfer PNR data at other points in time than those mentioned in paragraph 2(a) and (b).

Article 7
Exchange of information between Member States
1. Member States shall ensure that, with regard to persons identified by a Passenger Information Unit in accordance with Article 4(2)(a), the PNR data or the result of any processing thereof is transmitted by that Passenger Information Unit to the corresponding units of other Member States where it considers such transfer to be necessary for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of terrorist offences, or serious crime. The Passenger Information Units of the receiving Member States shall transmit the received information to their competent authorities in accordance with Article 4(4).
2. The Passenger Information Unit of a Member State shall have the right to request, if necessary, the Passenger Information Unit of any other Member State to provide it with PNR data that are kept in the latter’s database and have not yet been depersonalised through masking out under Article 9(2) and, if necessary, also the result of any processing thereof, if it has already been prepared pursuant to Article 4(2)(a). The duly reasoned request for such data may be based on any one or a combination of data elements, as deemed necessary by the requesting Passenger Information Unit for a specific case of prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of terrorist offences or serious crime. Passenger Information Units shall provide the requested data as soon as practicable. In case the requested data have been depersonalised through masking out in accordance with Article 9(2) the Passenger Information Unit shall only provide the full PNR data where it is reasonably believed that it is necessary for the purpose of Article 4(2)(b) and only when authorised to do so by an authority competent under Article 9(3).
3. (…)
4. Only when necessary in cases of emergency and under the conditions laid down in paragraph 2 may the competent authorities of a Member State request directly the Passenger Information Unit of any other Member State to provide it with PNR data that are kept in the latter’s database. The requests from the competent authorities, a copy of which shall always be sent to the Passenger Information Unit of the requesting Member State, shall be reasoned. In all other cases the competent authorities shall channel their requests through the Passenger Information Unit of their own Member State.
5. Exceptionally, where access to PNR data is necessary to respond to an specific and actual threat related to terrorist offences or serious crime, the Passenger Information Unit of a Member State shall at any time have the right to request the Passenger Information Unit of another Member State to obtain PNR data in accordance with article 6(4) and provide it to the requesting Passenger Information Unit.
6. Exchange of information under this Article may take place using any existing channels for cooperation between the competent authorities of the Member States. The language used for the request and the exchange of information shall be the one applicable to the channel used. Member States shall, when making their notifications in accordance with Article 3(3), also inform the Commission with details of the contact points to which requests may be sent in cases of emergency. The Commission shall communicate to the Member States the notifications received.

Article 8 Transfer of data to third States
A Member State may transfer PNR data as well as the results of the processing of such data stored by the Passenger Information Unit in accordance with Article 9 to a third State only on a case-bycase basis and if-
(a) the conditions laid down in Article 13 of Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA are fulfilled;
(b) it is necessary for the purposes of this Directive as specified in Article 1(2);
(c) the third State agrees to transfer the data to another third country only where it is necessary for the purposes of this Directive as specified in Article 1(2) and only with the express authorisation of the Member State that provided the third State with the data; and
(d) similar conditions as those laid down in Article 7(2) are fulfilled.

Article 9 Period of data retention
1. Member States shall ensure that the PNR data provided by the air carriers to the Passenger
Information Unit are retained in a database at the Passenger Information Unit for a period of five years after their transmission to the Passenger Information Unit of the Member State on whose territory the flight is landing or departing.
2. Upon expiry of a period of two years after the transfer of the PNR data as referred to in
paragraph 1, the PNR data shall be depersonalised through masking out of the following data elements which could serve to directly identify the passenger to whom the PNR data relate:
1. Name (s), including the names of other passengers on PNR travelling together;
2. Address and contact information;
3. All forms of payment information, including billing address, to the extent that it contains any information which could serve to directly identify the passenger to whom PNR relate or any other persons;
4. Frequent flyer information;
5. General remarks to the extent that it contains any information which could serve to directly identify the passenger to whom the PNR relate; and
6. Any collected advance passenger information.
3. Upon expiry of the two-year period referred to in paragraph 2, disclosure of the full PNR data shall be permitted only where it is reasonably believed that it is necessary for the purpose of Article 4(2)(b) and only when approved by a judicial authority or by another national authority competent under national law to verify whether the conditions for disclosure are fulfilled.

4. Member States shall ensure that the PNR data are deleted upon expiry of the period specified in paragraph 1. This obligation shall be without prejudice to cases where specific PNR data have been transferred to a competent authority and are used in the context of specific case for the purpose of prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution, in which case the retention of such data by the competent authority shall be regulated by the national law of the Member State.

5. The result of the processing referred to in Article 4(2)(a) shall be kept by the Passenger
Information Unit only as long as necessary to inform the competent authorities of a positive match. Where the result of an automated processing has, further to individual review by non-automated means as referred to in Article 4(2)(a) last subparagraph, proven to be negative, it may, however, be stored so as to avoid future `false’ positive matches for as long as the underlying data have not yet been deleted in accordance with paragraph 1.

Article 10 Penalties against air carriers
Member States shall ensure, in conformity with their national law, that dissuasive, effective and proportionate penalties, including financial penalties, are provided for against air carriers which, do not transmit the data as provided for in Article 6, or do not do so in the required format or otherwise infringe the national provisions adopted pursuant to this Directive.

Article 11 Protection of personal data
1. Each Member State shall provide that, in respect of all processing of personal data pursuant to this Directive, every passenger shall have the same right to access, the right to rectification, erasure and blocking, the right to compensation and the right to judicial redress as those adopted under the national law implementing Articles 17, 18, 19 and 20 of the Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA. The provisions of Articles 17, 18, 19 and 20 of the Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA shall therefore be applicable.
2. Each Member State shall provide that the provisions adopted under the national law to
implement Articles 21 and 22 of the Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA regarding confidentiality of processing and data security shall also apply to all processing of personal data pursuant to this Directive.
3. Any processing of PNR data revealing a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical belief, trade union membership, health or sexual life shall be prohibited. In the event that PNR data revealing such information are received by Passenger Information Unit they shall be deleted without delay.
4. All processing, including receipt of PNR data from air carriers and all transfers of PNR data by Passenger Information Units and all requests by competent authorities or Passenger Information Units of other Member States and third countries, even if refused, shall be logged or documented by the Passenger Information Unit concerned and the competent authorities for the purposes of verification of the lawfulness of the data processing, self-monitoring and ensuring proper data integrity and security of data processing, in particular by the national data protection supervisory authorities. These logs shall be kept for a period of five years unless the underlying data have not yet been deleted in accordance with Article 9(4) at the expiry of those five years, in which case the logs shall be kept until the underlying data are deleted.
5. Member States shall ensure that air carriers, their agents or other ticket sellers for the carriage of passengers on air service inform passengers of flights at the time of booking a flight and at the time of purchase of a ticket in a clear and precise manner about the transmission data to the Passenger Information Unit, the purposes of their processing, the period of data retention, their possible use to prevent, detect, investigate or prosecute terrorist offences and serious crime, the possibility of exchanging and sharing such data and their data protection rights, in particular the right to complain to the competent national data protection supervisory authority. The same information shall be made available by the Member States to the public.
6. Without prejudice to Article 10, Member States shall in particular lay down effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties to be imposed in case of infringements of the provisions adopted pursuant to this Directive.

Article 12 National supervisory authority
Each Member State shall provide that the national supervisory authority or authorities established to implement Article 25 of Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA shall also be responsible for advising on and monitoring the application within its territory of the provisions adopted by the Member States pursuant to the present Directive. The further provisions of Article 25 Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA shall be applicable.

CHAPTER IV IMPLEMENTING MEASURES

Article 13 Common protocols and supported data formats
1. All transfers of PNR data by air carriers to the Passenger Information Units for the purposes
of this Directive shall be made by electronic means or, in the event of technical failure, by any other appropriate means, for a period of one year following the adoption of the common protocols and supported data formats in accordance with Article 14.
2. Once the period of one year from the date of adoption, for the first time, of the common
protocols and supported data formats by the Commission in accordance with paragraph 3, has elapsed, all transfers of PNR data by air carriers to the Passenger Information Units for the purposes of this Directive shall be made electronically using secure methods in the form of those accepted common protocols which shall be common to all transfers to ensure the security of the data during transfer, and in a supported data format to ensure their readability by all parties involved. All air carriers shall be required to select and identify to the Passenger Information Unit the common protocol and data format that they intend to use for their transfers.
3. The list of accepted common protocols and supported data formats shall be drawn up taking due account of ICAO regulations and, if need be, adjusted, by the Commission by means of implementing acts in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 14(2).
4. As long as the accepted common protocols and supported data formats referred to in paragraphs 2 and 3 are not available, paragraph 1 shall remain applicable.
5. Each Member State shall ensure that the necessary technical measures are adopted to be able to use the common protocols and data formats within one year from the date referred to in paragraph 2.

Article 14 Committee procedure
1. The Commission shall be assisted by a committee. That Committee shall be a committee within the meaning of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers. The Commission shall not adopt the draft implementing act when no opinion is delivered by the Committee and the third subparagraph of Article 5(4) of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 shall apply.
2. Where reference is made to this paragraph, Article 5 of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 shall apply.

CHAPTER V FINAL PROVISIONS

Article 15 Transposition
1. Member States shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive at the latest 36 months after the entry into force of this Directive. They shall forthwith communicate to the Commission the text of those provisions.
When Member States adopt those provisions, they shall contain a reference to this Directive or be accompanied by such a reference on the occasion of their official publication. Member States shall determine how such reference is to be made.
2. Member States shall communicate to the Commission the text of the main provisions of national law which they adopt in the field covered by this Directive.

Article 17 Review
1. The Council shall, at the appropriate level, discuss regularly the practical experiences and relevant issues within the scope and subject matter of the Directive.
2. On the basis of these discussions as well as other information provided by the Member States, including the statistical information referred to in Article 18 (2), the Commission shall undertake a review of the operation of this Directive and:
(a) within two years after the date mentioned in Article 15(1) submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the feasibility and necessity of including all or selected intra-EU flights in the scope of this Directive on a mandatory basis, taking into account the experience gained by Member States, especially those Member States that in accordance with Article 1a collect PNR with regard to intra-EU flights,
(b) within four years after the date mentioned in Article 15(1) submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on all other elements of this Directive and on the feasibility and necessity of including transportation providers other than air carriers in the scope of this Directive, taking into account the experience gained by Member States, especially those Member States that collect PNR from other transportation providers.
3. If appropriate, in light of the review referred to in paragraph 2, the Commission shall make a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and the Council with a view to amending this Directive.

Article 18 Statistical data

1. Member States shall provide on a yearly basis the Commission with a set of statistical information on PNR data provided to the Passenger Information Units. These statistics shall not contain any personal data.
2. The statistics shall as a minimum cover:
1. total number of passengers whose PNR data were collected and exchanged;
2. number of passengers identified for further scrutiny;
3. number of subsequent law enforcement actions that were taken involving the use of PNR data;
3. On a yearly basis, the Commission shall provide the Council with cumulative statistics referred to in Article 18(1).

Article 19 Relationship to other instruments
1. Member States may continue to apply bilateral or multilateral agreements or arrangements
between themselves on exchange of information between competent authorities, in force when this Directive is adopted, in so far as such agreements or arrangements are compatible with this Directive.
2. This Directive is without prejudice to any obligations and commitments of Member States or
of the Union by virtue of bilateral and/or multilateral agreements with third countries.

Article 20 Entry into force
This Directive shall enter into force the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
This Directive is addressed to the Member States in accordance with the Treaties.
Done at Brussels,
For the European Parliament For the Council
The President The President

ANNEX I Passenger Name Record data as far as collected by air carriers
(1) PNR record locator
(2) Date of reservation/issue of ticket
(3) Date(s) of intended travel
(4) Name(s)
(5) Address and contact information (telephone number, e-mail address)
(6) All forms of payment information, including billing address
(7) Complete travel itinerary for specific PNR
(8) Frequent flyer information
(9) Travel agency/travel agent
(10) Travel status of passenger, including confirmations, check-in status, no show or go show information
(11) Split/divided PNR information
(12) General remarks (including all available information on unaccompanied minors under 18 years, such as name and gender of the minor, age, language(s) spoken, name and contact details of guardian on departure and relationship to the minor, name and contact details of guardian on arrival and relationship to the minor, departure and arrival agent)
(13) Ticketing field information, including ticket number, date of ticket issuance and one-way tickets, Automated Ticket Fare Quote fields
(14) Seat number and other seat information
(15) Code share information
(16) All baggage information
(17) Number and other names of travellers on PNR
(18) Any Advance Passenger Information (API) data collected (inter alia document type, document number, nationality, country of issuance, date of document expiration, family name, given name, gender, date of birth, airline, flight number, departure date, arrival date, departure port, arrival port, departure time, arrival time)
(19) All historical changes to the PNR listed in numbers 1 to 18.

ANNEX II
1. participation in a criminal organisation,
2. trafficking in human beings,
3. sexual exploitation of children and child pornography,
4. illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances,
5. illicit trafficking in weapons, munitions and explosives,
6. fraud,
7. laundering of the proceeds of crime,
8. computer-related crime,
9. environmental crime, including illicit trafficking in endangered animal species and in endangered plant species and varieties,
10. facilitation of unauthorised entry and residence,
11. illicit trade in human organs and tissue,
12. kidnapping, illegal restraint and hostage-taking,
13. organised and armed robbery,
14. illicit trafficking in cultural goods, including antiques and works of art,
15. forgery of administrative documents and trafficking therein,
16. illicit trafficking in hormonal substances and other growth promoters,
17. illicit trafficking in nuclear or radioactive materials,
18. unlawful seizure of aircraft/ships,
19. sabotage, and
20. trafficking in stolen vehicles.

A Tale of Two States: Rule of Law in the Age of Terrorism

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON VERFASSUNGSblog

by Giovanna DE MINICO

As a reaction to the recent terrorist attacks in France, several EU member states as well as the EU itself have announced significant anti-terrorism measures.

Even well before the French facts, the UK proposed to isolate suspected terrorists, withdrawing and confiscating their passports to prevent them from entering and leaving the country. This is in line with the aggressive policies of both theRegulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.

France, while rhethorically distancing itself from the American Patriot Act, seems to do substantially the same, as President François Hollande announced that he wants to close the online websites suspected of fomenting terrorism. Not even the United States has adopted a measure of such gravity, suffocating the freedom of speech and thought. The US may be responsible for the distant and pervasive control of our private life but it still insists on an open market place of ideas as an undefeatable antidote against the violence spreading germs.

Germany has announced, together with the suspension of the ID card, based on the English model, other measures aimed to reinforce the dialogue between police and intelligence, upholding a demand for cooperation raised by multiple European voices.

The European Union seems to have set definitely aside the very strong querellebetween privacy and security with regard to the subject-matter of PNR, i.e. the personal number record of passengers. This is an ID of single passengers which put together miscellaneous data of various nature, from the personal data to the information about how they paid, what they have eaten, which newspaper they have asked for on board or incidentally their sanitary requirements. Clearly, these data, if properly cross-examined, could be very useful to find out their political or religious thoughts.

The duty to collect this new mountain of data would be imposed on the air carriers for a number of years (yet to be defined precisely). What is even more incompatible with the rule of law is the fact that such measure applies to passengers regardless of their inclusion in a suspects’ list. This issue is not new to the European Union. Actually, it dates back to a Directive proposal of 2011, which was rejected by theLibe Commission in 2013 for infringing the right to privacy and has been brought up again by the European Council in August 2014. These days, it seems to be back in the agenda of the European Parliament after the meeting of the interior Ministers recently held in Place Beavau. The debated issue now is focused only on the number of years of the data keeping, because the resistance of privacy supporters, which fired up the debate at the Libe Commission, seems now to have been set aside in the name of security.

Let’s ask ourselves if this mass recording is necessarly for prevention reasons. My opinion is that the demand for public security is not sufficient to justify such action; in fact, keeping this massive amount of information, applying indiscriminately to all the passengers, makes the investigations slow, ill-timed and, often, inutiliter data.Prevention measures, due to their anticipatory character, must be very timely and focused on well selected targets, otherwise they risk to be only effective when an event has already occurred.

The well known criticism related to privacy violations, disproportionate control, lack of protection against discrimination, departure from the constitutional presumption of innocence, remain standing. Furthermore, the objection of the ineffectiveness of the remedy to fullfill the security aims, already raised towards the NSA’s acquisition of the online metadata, could apply also to the PNR.

State of Terror vs. State of Law

After having highlighted the ongoing legal framework, let’s focus on the “State of Terror” on the one side, and the “State of Law” on the other: what they want and how they intend to achieve it.

a) The State of Terror wants to spread chilling fear and make people feel alone and without protection by the State of Law. In this situation of weakness, citizens are ready to surrender their freedom in return to the promise of security, which however no Government could ever completely ensure. To sum up, terrorism has proven to have well understood the lesson of divide et impera.

b) The State of Law should respond by educating its community to the values of legality, tolerance and solidarity. Its duty, in times of fear, is an ethical rather than a police one; it has to make the people leave their isolation and facilitate their social and political inclusion. This action requires concrete actions by political decision-makers.

To the fear, which is the first result of terrorism, the State has to respond with the wisdom of a legislator, which should not act under the pressure of understandable emotional feelings. Any measures have to comply with the principles ofproportionality and precaution, otherwise not only they risk to be erased by the European or national Supreme Courts but they will prove to be meaningless. The recent episodes are evidence that all-encompassing controls such as the online data collection of the real and virtual movements of terrorists have not been able to prevent their criminal actions: controlling everyone is equal to controlling no one.

In a long-time perspective, the European Parliament should make use of its competence from article 83 TFUE to give, along with the Council, a common definition of the crime of terrorism and enact serious, quick and effective measures. This is permitted by article 83; and it is very much to be regretted that this competence conferred on the European Parliament has not been exercised so far.

Last but not least, the State of Law should take cultural action aiming to include heterogeneous people while respecting their diversities. By contrast, the melting-pot method followed so far, that tried to uniform the different ideologies, failed because of the lack of a common values.

The State of Law has not to use the usual categories of the prevalence of Right over Wrong, West over Islam; it should rather develop the cohabitation of the opposites by sharing what we Europeans are still denying to the foreign people: social rights. A State of Law, which shows itself severe in the rules but generous in the co-division of welfare, will be able to compete with the State of Terror. The latter recruits its followers among the desperates, those who feel to be abandoned by the hosting State.

In the light of the above foreigners could choose between a proposal of violence and isolation, made by the State of Terror, and one of cohabitation and solidarity, made by a new European State of Law.

Dieser Text steht unter der Lizenz CC BY NC ND

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode)

Zitiervorschlag: De Minico, Giovanna: A Tale of Two States: Rule of Law in the Age of Terrorism, VerfBlog, 2015/1/24, http://www.verfassungsblog.de/tale-two-states-rule-law-age-terrorism/

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The US Senate reveals the truth on renditions and torture, now it’s Europe’s turn.

NB Translated by Yasha Maccanico from an original italian version published on Europeanrights internet site.

by Armando Spataro[1]

On 9 December 2014, as had been announced the day before by Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, the US Senate released a report of around 500 pages that officially acknowledged all sorts of torture (including water-boarding) and the practice of extraordinary renditions, enacted by the CIA for around a decade within the framework of an unacceptable strategy to fight international terrorism. Moreover, the report consists of a summarised review of an even wider study which is around 6,700 pages long, the rest of which will remain ‘classified’, as is said in jargon, and hence secret. The work by the Senate’s Intelligence Committee monitoring the secret services, on which the report is based, lasted for around five years and included analysis of around 6 million documents.

Thus, practically the whole world had official confirmation of what was already known to an extent and which, according to several commentators, constituted a practice enacted since the years that immediately preceded the 11 September [attacks], when the CIA was headed by George Tenet (from 1997 to 2004), and up until 2009 (hence, also at the time when Tenet’s role was assumed first by Porter Gross and then by Michael Hayden). In any case, these were methods developed with certainty – according to the report – after 11 September. Yet, the truly innovative element did not consist in this practice being revealed, but in its clear and unequivocal condemnation by the United States Senate.

The president of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, the California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who had already reported the violation of the computers of the Committee she presided over by the CIA[2] in March 2014, insisted for the immediate publication of this dossier. The senator, who overcame internal resistance even within her party by those who opposed the report’s publication, declared: “We have to divulge it because whoever reads it will act in order for it never to happen again”. The position taken by President Obama was no different, as he stated: “We were not worthy of our values… Torture has not even contributed to making us safer against terrorism. I will continue to use my presidential authority to guarantee that we will never use those methods again”[3]. Brutal and inefficient methods, whose only consequences were summed up by Harry Raid, leader of the outgoing Democratic majority in the Senate, in just a few words:“All of this has just muddied us”.

But the top echelons of the CIA immediately stated that they had done what was asked of them, assuring that everything was lawful.

Hence, it is worth reconstructing the route along which, at a certain point, governments, including European ones, political leaders and many jurists came to claim that acts of torture and the kidnapping of suspected terrorists had a juridical legitimation and, therefore, could be practised.

It all arises from an abstruse juridical theorisation, that of the war on terror, whereby war must be met with war, also because it is a way of producing democracy, so much so that “after the bombing of Falluja, the inhabitants of the destroyed city were happier and voted in great numbers”[4]. It was a theory that was drawn up in the wake of 11 September and had quickly become so popular as to be mentioned using an acronym: “W.o.T.”

In essence, acts of so-called international terrorism supposedly constitute acts of war that may be countered with similar techniques among which kidnappings and torture are included. Of course, it is true that acts of terrorism may also be carried out in times and zones of war, but it is likewise evident that this does not justify that kind of response in any way. In fact, everyone, and not just jurists, knows that in war situations the law for armed conflict situations is applicable as it is laid out in the Geneva Convention, its additional protocols and its further, more general purposes that are found in humanitarian law.

However, within the frame of the WoT principles become flexible, “grey areas” in which rights exist in a limited form become admissible, where any rule subsides or rules are often violated, starting from, for example, the very creation of the category of enemy combatants, that is, of illegal enemy combatants which, according to the view of those who created it, enables terrorist suspects who are “captured” in any part of the world to be denied their fundamental rights.

We owe the creation of this monstruous juridical category to John Woo from the US Department of Justice’s Legal Advice Office, the author of a 42-page memorandum in which Al Qaeda and the entire Taleban regime were included among the illegal enemy combatants, to whom the Geneva Conventions would not be applied.[5]

Moreover, John Yoo later complained (in 2008) in some press articles that the unveiling of his role as counsellor-strategist exposed him to the risk of reprisals, whereas he now claims, with renewed pride and following the publication of the Feinstein report, the authorship of that memorandum. Yoo recently published the book “Point Attack”, in which he redevelops that “emergency law” which was decisive – in his view – after 11 September[6].

Fears that were somewhat similar to those expressed by Woo prior to his more recent coming out, had been voiced by Matthew Waxman, professor at the Columbia Law School and a high ranking official in the staff of the US State Department between 2005 and 2007, who complained about[7] the worldwide release of the photographs that documented the inhumane treatment inflicted upon prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo: «What image are we giving of the fight against terrorism?», he commented.

In reality, using the words of Antonio Cassese, this system constitutes a “juridical limbo”, which is enriched by ad hoc clauses and provisions directed at further legitimating it. Continue reading “The US Senate reveals the truth on renditions and torture, now it’s Europe’s turn.”

D. KORFF : The rule of law on the Internet and in the wider digital world

NB This is the executive summary of an issue paper prepared by Professor Douwe Korff, Visiting Fellow, Yale University (Information Society Project), and Oxford Martin Associate, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, UK for the Council of Europe Commissioner for fundamental rights. (Douwe Korff is also member of FREE Group)

FULL DOCUMENT ACCESSIBLE HERE

Executive summary

This issue paper addresses a pressing question: how can we ensure that the rule of law is established and maintained on the Internet and in the wider digital world? Section 1 describes the range of online activities and the threats to this environment; section 2 discusses the emerging “Internet governance” principles, and notes the special control exercised over the digital world by the USA (and the UK, in respect of Europe), which could lead to fragmentation of the Internet in response. Section 3 sketches the international standards of the rule of law, and some problems in the application of law in this new environment. Section 4 looks in some more detail at the main issues emerging from the earlier sections – freedom of expression, privatised law enforcement, data protection, cybercrime and national security – and discusses the delicate balances that need to be struck. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights has formulated a number of recommendations on the basis of the issues raised by this issue paper; these are set out after this executive summary.

A new environment for human activities

We live in a global digital environment that has created new means for local, regional and global activities, including new types of political activism, cultural exchanges and the exercise of human rights. These activities are not virtual in the sense of “not truly real”. On the contrary, they are an essential part of real citizens’ lives. Restrictions on access to the Internet and digital media, and attempts to monitor our online activities or e-communications, interfere with our fundamental rights to freedom of expression and information, freedom of association, privacy and private life (and possibly other rights such as freedom of religion and belief, or the right to a fair trial).

The new global digital environment of course also creates a new space for unlawful behaviour: for the dissemination of hate speech or child pornography, incitement to violence, breaches of copyright (“piracy”), fraud, identity theft, money laundering and attacks on the e-communications infrastructure itself through malware (such as Trojans and worms) or “denial of service” attacks. Cybercrime and cybersecurity have become major concerns. These threats are increasingly transnational, and there is a broad international consensus on the need to deal with cybercrime, cybersecurity and terrorism, but there is much less agreement on specifics – or even what constitutes a threat.

Four issues stand out. First, state actions aiming to counter cybercrime, threats to cybersecurity and threats to national security are increasingly intertwined; the boundaries between such activities are blurred, and the institutions and agencies dealing with them work more closely together. Second, states are now co-ordinating their actions in all these regards. Third, the work of national security and intelligence agencies increasingly depends on monitoring the activities of individuals and groups in the digital environment. Fourth, instead of ex post facto law enforcement, the emphasis is now on intelligence and prevention, with law-enforcement agencies using techniques – and technologies – previously reserved for secret services.

The nature of the digital environment Dangerous data

In an age of “Big Data” (when data on our actions are shared and/or exploited in aggregate form) and the “Internet of Things” (when more and more physical objects – things – are communicating over the Internet), it is becoming difficult to ensure true anonymisation: the more data are available, the easier it becomes to identify a person. Moreover, the mining of Big Data, in ever more sophisticated ways, leads to the creation of profiles. Although these profiles are used to spot rare phenomena (e.g. to find a terrorist in a large set of data, such as airlines’ passenger name records), they are unreliable and can unwittingly lead to discrimination on grounds of race, gender, religion or nationality. These profiles are constituted in such complex ways that the decisions based on them can be effectively unchallengeable: even those implementing the decisions do not fully comprehend the underlying reasoning. The digital environment can by its very nature erode privacy and other fundamental rights, and undermine accountable decision making. There is enormous potential for undermining the rule of law – by weakening or destroying privacy rights, restricting freedom of communication or freedom of association – and for arbitrary interference.

Global and private, but not in the sky

Because of the open nature of the Internet (which is its greatest strength), any end point on the network can communicate with virtually any other end point, following whatever route is calculated as being most efficient, the data flowing through all sorts of switches, routers and cables: the Internet’s physical infrastructure. The electronic communications system is transnational, indeed global, by its very nature; and its infrastructure is physical and located in real places, in spite of talk of a Cloud. At the moment, many of these physical components are in the USA and many of them are managed and controlled by private entities, not by governmental ones.

The main infrastructure for the Internet consists of high-capacity fibre-optic cables running under the world’s oceans and seas, and associated land-based cables and routers. The most important cables for Europe are those that run from continental Europe to the UK, and from there under the Atlantic to the USA. Given the dominance of the Internet and of the Cloud by US companies, these cables carry a large proportion of all Internet traffic and Internet-based communication data, including almost all data to and from Europe.

Who is in control? Internet governance

Important Internet governance principles have been put forward, by the Council of Europe and others, that stress the need to apply public international law and international human rights law equally online and offline, and to respect the rule of law and democracy on the Internet. These principles recognise and promote the multiple stakeholders in Internet governance and urge all public and private actors to uphold human rights in all their operations and activities, including the design of new technologies, services and applications. And they call on states to respect the sovereignty of other nations, and to refrain from actions that would harm persons or entities outside their territorial jurisdiction.

However, these principles still remain largely declaratory and aspirational: there is still a deficiency in actual Internet governance arrangements that can be relied on to ensure the application of these principles in practice. Also, Internet governance must take account of the fact that – partly because of its corporate dominance, and partly because of historical arrangements – the USA has more control over the Internet than any other state (or even all other states combined). Together with its close partner, the UK, it has access to most of the Internet infrastructure.

The former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has revealed that the USA and the UK are using this control and access to conduct mass surveillance of the Internet and of global electronic communications systems and social networks. There are fears that states may respond to the Snowden revelations by fragmentation of the Internet, with countries or regions insisting that their data are routed solely through local routers and cables, and stored in local clouds. This risks destroying the Internet as we know it, by creating national barriers to a global network. Unless the USA improves compliance with international human rights standards in its activities that affect the Internet and global communication systems, the movement towards such a truncated Internet will be difficult to stop.

Private-sector control

Much of the infrastructure of the Internet and the wider digital environment is in the hands of private entities, many of them US corporations. This is problematic because companies are not directly bound by international human rights law – that directly applies only to states and governments – and it is more difficult to obtain redress against such companies.

In addition, private entities are subject to the national laws of the countries where they are established or active – and those laws do not always conform to international law or international human rights standards: they may impose restrictions on activities on the Internet (typically, on freedom of expression) that violate international human rights law; or they may impose or allow interference, such as surveillance of Internet activity or e-communications, that is contrary to international human rights law; and such actions may be applied extraterritorially, in violation of the sovereignty of other states.

The application of national law to the activities of private entities controlling (significant parts of) the digital world is extremely complex and delicate. Of course states have a right, and indeed a duty, to counter criminal activity that uses the Internet or e-communication systems. In this, they naturally enlist the help of relevant private actors. Responsible companies will also want to avoid their products and services being used for criminal purposes. Nonetheless, in such circumstances, states should in their actions both fully comply with their international human rights commitments and fully respect the sovereignty of other states. In particular, states should not circumvent constitutional or international law obligations by encouraging restrictions on human rights through “voluntary” actions by intermediaries; and companies, too, should respect the human rights of individuals.

The rule of law in the digital environment

The rule of law

The rule of law is a principle of governance by which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the state itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, independently adjudicated and consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It entails adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in applying the law, separation of powers, participation in decision making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency.

The basic “rule of law” tests developed by the European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights has developed elaborate “rule of law” tests in its case law, and these have also been adopted by other international human rights bodies. To pass these tests, all restrictions on fundamental rights must be based on clear, precise, accessible and foreseeable legal rules, and must serve clearly legitimate aims; they must be “necessary” and “proportionate” to the relevant legitimate aim (within a certain “margin of appreciation”); and there must be an “effective [preferably judicial] remedy” against alleged violations of these requirements.

“Everyone”, without discrimination

It is one of the hallmarks of international human rights law since 1945, and one of its greatest achievements, that human rights must be accorded to “everyone”, to all human beings: they are humans’ rights, not just citizens’ rights. Thus, subject to very limited exceptions, all laws, of all states, affecting or interfering with human rights must be applied to “everyone”, without discrimination “of any kind”, including discrimination on grounds of residence or nationality.

Because of the unique place of the USA and US companies in the functioning of the Internet, the constitutional and corporate legal framework in the USA is of particular importance. However, in contrast to the above-mentioned principle of international human rights law, many of the human rights guarantees in the US Constitution and in various US laws relating to the digital environment apply only to US citizens and non-US citizens residing in the USA (“US persons”). Only “US persons” benefit from the First Amendment, covering free speech and freedom of association; the Fourth Amendment, protecting US citizens from “unreasonable searches”; and most of the (limited) protections against excessive surveillance provided by the main pieces of legislation on national security and intelligence (FISA Amendment and Patriot Acts).

“Within [a contracting state’s] [territory and] jurisdiction”

The duty of states to comply with their responsibilities under international human rights law also when acting extraterritorially The main international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), oblige states to “ensure” or “secure” the human rights laid down in those treaties to “everyone subject to their jurisdiction” (or “within their jurisdiction”). This requirement is increasingly given a functional rather than a territorial meaning – as has recently been reaffirmed by the Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights. In other words, each state must ensure or secure these rights to anyone under its physical control or whose rights are affected by its (or its agencies’) actions.

Thus, states must comply with their international human rights obligations in any action they take that may affect the human rights of individuals – even when they act extraterritorially, or take actions that have extraterritorial effect. This obligation has specific consequences for data – what the digital world is made of – and especially for personal data, as is recognised by European data-protection law, which protects all individuals whose data are processed by European controllers, irrespective of their place of residence, nationality or other status. However, the USA formally rejects this application of international human rights law. In view of the predominance of the USA (and of US corporations that are subject to that country’s jurisdiction) in the digital environment, this poses a serious threat to the rule of law in that new environment. Continue reading “D. KORFF : The rule of law on the Internet and in the wider digital world”

H.LABAYLE, R.MEHDI : Terrorisme : le jour d’après

Original Published HERE

<strong>par Henri Labayle et Rostane Mehdi</strong>

(ENGLISH ABSTRACT by C.Perinaud:
The day after
Beyond disgust and emotion, the tragic events that which took place in Paris on 7 January 2014 lead us to think about the place of law in our contemporary societies. One can only be shocked by the inability of the latest to tackle the increasing number of murders driven by fanatism and religious obscurantism.
What strikes in the attack of CharlieHebdo is the position of the victims; journalists, satirical cartoonists and the policemen who were in charge of protecting them. Yet, according to the ECtHR formula the murder aimed at killing the “public watchdog of the democracy” . Who will protect us from hated and intolerant speech tomorrow?
Yesterday
The events that which arose in Paris are unfortunately only exceptional because of their extent. For 25 years, Salman Rushdie has been frightened by those who condemned him.
For almost 10 years, Danish cartoonists from the Jyllands-Posten have been placed under the police protection.
We need to think about it. If we need to talk about a “civilisation war”, it can’t be a religious one or a mere irreducible opposition between Occident and Islam. If there is a war, it can only be a fight for the Rule of law.
Tomorrow
The answer to those events is the criminal law so as to reduce the killers to what they are and what they have never ceased to be: criminals. To read things from another prospective would be to acknowledge acknowledging that the fight they intend to conduct can be qualified as such. But it cannot because it is only a crime.
Yet, the collapse of the Rule of law is obvious as it is unable to provide for an efficient answer to the terrorist threat. What strikes the observer of the area of Freedom Security and Justice is indeed the growing number of those criminal actions and the difficulties faced by democratic societies to overcome them.)

TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL POST

Les assassinats commis au journal Charlie Hebdo ne nous sont pas étrangers. Ni le citoyen, ni le juriste, ni l’observateur des développements de l’Espace de liberté, sécurité et de justice ne peuvent y être indifférents. Ils nous invitent, par delà le dégoût et l’émotion, à réfléchir aux grands équilibres de nos sociétés contemporaines et à la place que le droit peut y tenir.

On ne peut qu’être surpris et anéantis devant le spectacle, au XXI° siècle, d’une société occidentale incapable d’interrompre la chronique inexorable de meurtres annoncés par le fanatisme et l’obscurantisme religieux, chaînon supplémentaire à l’abomination quotidienne qui ensanglante le Proche Orient.

Ce qui frappe ici d’abord et nous touche au plus profond, sont les victimes. Journalistes, caricaturistes, policiers les protégeant sont tombés sous les balles de criminels ayant juré leur perte en raison de caricatures jugées offensantes pour la religion musulmane. Aussi, par delà les débats de principe relatifs à la liberté de la presse et à la liberté d’opinion, il est bon, peut-être de rappeler aujourd’hui ce qu’en dit la Cour européenne des droits de l’Homme, dans une formule magnifique : la presse est le « chien de garde de la démocratie » (CEDH, 25 juin 1992, Thorgeir Thorgeirson c. Islande, req. n° 13778/88).

Le meurtre de la rédaction de Charlie Hebdo n’est autre que celui des chiens de garde de nos démocraties. Il nous renvoie à cette interrogation simple : qui nous protégera, demain, des discours de haine et d’intolérance qui ont armé le bras des assassins ?

A la condamnation de ceux là, la Cour européenne des droits de l’Homme participe aussi lorsqu’elle affirme haut et clair que « la tolérance et le respect de l’égale dignité de tous les êtres humains constituent le fondement d’une société démocratique et pluraliste. Il en résulte qu’en principe on peut juger nécessaire, dans les sociétés démocratiques, de sanctionner voire de prévenir toutes les formes d’expression qui propagent, incitent à, promeuvent ou justifient la haine fondée sur l’intolérance (y compris l’intolérance religieuse), si l’on veille à ce que les « formalités », « conditions », « restrictions » ou « sanctions » imposées soient proportionnées au but légitime poursuivi » (CEDH, 2 juillet 2006, Erbakan c. Turquie, req. 59405/00).

C’est bien ainsi qu’il nous faut percevoir les évènements parisiens d’hier, qui ne sont exceptionnels malheureusement que par leur ampleur.

Hier

Voici près d’un quart de siècle que Salman Rushdie est poursuivi par la vindicte imbécile de ceux qui l’avaient condamné, que son traducteur japonais puis son éditeur ont été victimes de leur proximité avec l’auteur des Versets sataniques. Voici près de dix ans que les dessinateurs danois du Jyllands-Posten, pour des faits exactement similaires à ceux reprochés à Charlie Hebdo, sont placés sous protection policière.

Y réfléchir est nécessaire. A l’instar de l’historicisme, l’approche consistant à faire de la culture le fondement exclusif du droit mène peu ou prou au relativisme. Or, la ligne suivie par les islamistes est bien celle-là : dans le domaine des droits de l’homme les particularités spirituelles ou culturelles y légitiment, en le systématisant, le rejet de principes généralement considérés comme universels. Dans cette perspective, les droits fondamentaux plongent leurs racines « dans la conviction que Dieu, et Dieu seul, est l’Auteur de la Loi et Source de tous les droits de l’homme » (Introduction, al. 2, Déclaration islamique universelle des droits de l’homme).

Se dessinent ainsi les contours d’un univers dans lequel l’homme n’est pas détenteur de prérogatives inhérentes à sa nature mais redevable à une volonté divine dont tout procède. La prégnance des préceptes religieux est ici absolue, car ils étalonnent (en réalité, ils vident de leur substance) tous les droits et libertés énoncés. Ainsi, même lorsqu’il est expressément reconnu, le droit à la liberté religieuse et donc par extension les droits qui en dérivent ne peuvent s’exercer que dans les limites imposées par la Loi de Dieu (Article 13 de la DIUDH qui doit être lu à la lumière des dispositions de l’article 2). Pour les islamistes, l’attribution de droits s’effectue exclusivement par référence à une appartenance religieuse et selon un raisonnement substantiellement discriminatoire. En effet, toute cette construction repose sur l’idée centrale que les hommes devront être distingués sur la base de leur religion et soumis de ce fait même à des régimes que l’on sait différenciés.

Cette démarche vise à rompre avec un unanimisme factice (du moins au yeux des islamistes), le but recherché étant d’assurer l’intégrité d’un système de valeurs définitivement inconciliables avec les prescriptions universelles notamment en ce qu’elles concernent les droits de la femme, la liberté de conscience ou les peines pénales cruelles et inhumaines. Elle revient à dénier toute pertinence au prolongement moderne le plus remarquable de ces philosophies humanistes en vertu desquelles le respect des droits de l’homme ne résulte que des exigences de la raison humaine.

Par delà les discours convenus et les tentatives de récupération politique auxquels, déjà, la société médiatique se prête, une réflexion s’impose alors quant à la « guerre » de civilisation à laquelle Régis Debray se référait aujourd’hui, sur France Culture. Elle est tout sauf une guerre de religions comme d’aucuns s’empressent de nous le suggérer, un affrontement entre l’Occident et l’Islam, une opposition de nature complaisamment mise en scène par des amateurs de lumière médiatique.

S’il faut employer un vocabulaire belliciste, mieux vaut être conscient de sa portée tant l’utilisation de ces postures a conduit loin, trop loin, outre-Atlantique comme la publication expurgée d’un rapport de la CIA par le Sénat américain le mois dernier en atteste. Si guerre il y a, elle est tout simplement une guerre entre l’Etat de droit et l’Etat de non-droit.

Demain

La réponse par le droit est donc la seule qui vaille, et par un droit pénal ramenant les coupables à ce qu’ils sont et non jamais cessé d’être : des criminels. Parler autrement serait reconnaître que le combat qu’ils prétendent mener en est un. Il n’est que crime. Il est d’ailleurs vraisemblable que les brillantes analyses visant à leur prêter une stratégie réfléchie et le projet d’opposer les communautés n’est qu’illusion. Animés de leur volonté de vengeance et sûrs de leur bon droit, ils n’ont sans doute voulu qu’une seule chose : punir et tuer. Qu’en revanche, en amont, le conditionnement des esprits et, en aval, la réalisation du crime aient nécessité l’appui d’une organisation va de soi.
Or la faillite du droit est ici manifeste.
Empilant les législations d’exception les unes sur les autres, sans grands états d’âme du législateur, l’Etat de droit n’apporte aujourd’hui aucune réponse véritablement efficace à la menace, la criminalité terroriste empruntant des formes et des calendriers auxquels l’action policière peine à s’adapter, faute de moyens parfois et parce que les limites du droit l’imposent, souvent.
En l’espèce, la rapidité de la réponse policière ne masquera pas longtemps qu’elle n’est que réaction, qui plus est à propos de Pieds Nickelés de l’horreur oubliant leur carte d’identité dans leur véhicule. Là encore les polémiques habituelles s’en nourriront. Pourtant, en démocratie, c’est ainsi que la loi le commande et c’est bien là que les difficultés se multiplient, en France et en Europe.
Car ce qui frappe, dans l’observation de l’Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice, est bien la généralisation de cette forme d’action criminelle et la difficulté des Etats démocratiques à y répondre. Rapidement classée dans nos esprits au rang des faits divers, la tuerie aveugle du Musée juif de Bruxelles doit davantage l’arrestation de son auteur au hasard qu’à l’efficacité de la loi pénale et ce, après que l’affaire Merah ait pourtant frappé les esprits et provoqué des remises en question.
C’est dire qu’agir en amont est essentiel en la matière, ce dont l’Union européenne a pris conscience au cours de l’année 2014, suivant en cela l’impulsion du Coordinateur de la lutte anti-terroriste. Outre l’identification et le suivi des individus concernés, le stockage des données les concernant, la prévention et la lutte contre la radicalisation terroriste sont ainsi devenus des priorités, en lien avec le dossier des djihadistes européens partant combattre au Proche Orient. Merah, Nemmouche et peut être l’un des suspects du carnage de Charlie Hebdo n’en faisaient-ils pas partie ?
Ainsi, la guerre des idées est venue progressivement s’imposer à l’esprit d’une société qui était largement restée indifférente à cette dimension particulière.
Car c’est vraisemblablement là qu’est le nœud du problème.
Dans une société européenne largement sécularisée où parfois, comme en France, la laïcité est érigée en principe commandant la neutralité de la chose publique, l’irruption du fait religieux n’a pas été perçue à sa juste mesure, en particulier mais pas seulement à propos de l’Islam.
Religion d’implantation relativement nouvelle en France, sinon en Europe, son insertion et son adaptation à la société occidentale n’ont fait l’objet d’aucune attention particulière, d’aucun accompagnement, d’aucune pédagogie réciproque.

Permettant que soit mis l’accent sur ce qui singularise et sépare et non sur ce qui rassemble le corps social, la démocratie libérale a ainsi autorisé sans s’en rendre compte que la place publique devienne le siège de débats récurrents, de la burka aux menus des cantines en passant par les prières de rue, dont les solutions en forme de compromis ont donné à chacun le sentiment qu’il en était le perdant. Confessionnalisation des principes et communautarisation des démarches n’ont sans doute pas suscité l’attention méritée, fait mesurer les risques encourus.

A cette incapacité à dégager des lignes claires de vie en commun s’est ajoutée le spectacle d’un théâtre extérieur où la multiplication des interventions occidentales au Proche Orient puis en Afrique subsaharienne a fini par donner l’impression d’une planification organisée.
L’irrationnel et le fanatisme ont alors enclenché le processus de victimisation et de vengeance. Il conduit à la journée d’hier tandis que l’instrumentalisation de cette violence, de part et d’autre, ouvre le risque de voir se creuser les fossés.

Edgar Morin l’écrit très bien dans le Monde de ce jour : « la pensée réductrice triomphe. Non seulement les fanatiques meurtriers croient combattre les croisés et leurs alliés les juifs (que les croisés massacraient), mais les islamophobes réduisent l’arabe à sa supposée croyance, l’islam, réduisent l’islamique en islamiste, l’islamiste en intégriste, l’intégriste en terroriste».

Lutter contre cette réduction demande donc de changer de logiciel. N’est pas Saint Just qui veut pour réclamer « pas de liberté pour les ennemis de la liberté » mais là est bien l’interrogation qui va dominer le débat politique dans les jours qui viennent.

S.PEERS : (AFTER CHARLIE HEBDO) DOES THE EU NEED MORE ANTI-TERRORIST LEGISLATION?

Original published HERE

By Professor Steve PEERS

Thursday, 8 January 2015

In the wake of the appalling attacks in Paris two days ago, it only took 24 hours for the EU Commission to state that it would propose a new wave of EU anti-terrorist measures in a month’s time. It’s not yet known what the content of this law will be; but the very idea of new legislation is a profound mistake.

Of course, it was right for the EU institutions to express sympathy for the victims of the attack, and solidarity as regards defence of free speech. Equally, it would not be problematic to use existing EU anti-terrorism laws if necessary, in order (for instance) to surrender the suspects in this crime on the basis of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW), in the event that they fled to another Member State.

The question is whether the EU needs more such laws.

For the EU has already reacted to prior terrorism offences, first as regards 9/11 and then to the atrocities in Madrid and London in 2004 and 2005.

The result is a huge body of anti-terrorism law, catalogued here by the SECILE project. This comprises not only measures specifically concerning terrorism (such as substantive criminal law measures, adopted in 2002 and amended in 2008), but many other measures which make it easier to cooperate as regards terrorism as well as other criminal offences, such as the EAW, the laws on exchange of police information and transmission of evidence across borders, and so on.

Moreover, there are proposals already under discussion which would apply to terrorism issues (among others), such as a new law on Europol, the EU’s police intelligence agency (discussed here), and proposed EU legislation on the transfer of airlines’ passenger name records (PNR).

So what new laws is the Commission likely to propose? It may suggest a new version of the data retention Directive, the previous version of which was struck down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) last spring, in the Digital Rights judgment (discussed here). Other ideas under discussion, according to leaked documents (see here and here) are new laws strengthening mandatory checks at borders .

Are any of these laws really necessary? Member States can already adopt laws on retention of communications data, pursuant to the EU’s e-privacy directive.

As the European Parliament’s legal service has confirmed (see its advice here), if Member States adopt such measures, they will be subject to the constraints of the Digital Rights judgment, which bans mass surveillance carried out in the absence of safeguards to protect privacy. Equally, Member States are free to establish their own PNR systems, in the absence of any EU-wide measure (besides EU treaties with the USA, Canada and Australia on PNR). The question of whether mass surveillance is as such compatible with human rights has already been sent to the CJEU by the European Parliament, which has asked the Court to rule on this issue in the context of the EU/Canada PNR treaty (see discussion here).

It would be possible to adopt new laws calling for systematic border checks in specific cases. In practice, this would likely mean checks on Muslims who are returning after travel to places like Syria. It is questionable whether asking detailed further questions at the external borders will, by itself, really do a lot to prevent terrorism. After all, in the Paris attacks, it unfortunately proved impossible to prevent an apparent terrorist attack despite extensive anti-terrorist legislation on the books, and bodyguards protecting the staff of a known terrorist target.

There’s also a question of principle here.

The Paris attacks were directed at free speech: the foundation of liberal democracy. Of course efforts should be stepped up to prevent such attacks from happening again; but existing laws allow for targeted intelligence gathering and sharing already, The Commission’s immediate response reeks of panic. And the direct attack on fundamental democratic principles this week in Paris is precisely the wrong context to consider that new legislation curtailing other fundamental freedoms is limited.