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 Privacy
International Wins Historic Victory at UK Supreme Court
(link):
"Today, after a five
year battle with the UK government, Privacy International has
won at the UK Supreme Court. The UK
Supreme Court has ruled that the Investigatory Powers
Tribunal’s (IPT) decisions are subject to judicial review
in the High Court. The Supreme Court's judgment is a major endorsement
and affirmation of the rule of law in the UK. The decision guarantees
that when the IPT gets the law wrong, its mistakes can be corrected."
Government
access to airline PNR data challenged in German courts (Papers Please!, link):
"Complaints filed today
in German courts challenge government access to and use and retention
of Passenger Name Record data (commercial airline reservation
records) as a violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by both
European Union and German law.(...)
So far as we know, these are
the first lawsuits anywhere in the world to challenge the legality
of government demands for access to PNR data or other travel
records. (...)
The lead plaintiff in the
case filed in German administrative court in Wiesbaden, Emilio
De Capitani, is a retired former director of the staff of the
LIBE (civil liberties) committee of the European Parliament.(...)
Mr. De Capitani plans to fly
from Brussels to Berlin for a meeting of GFF in November 2019.
He has purchased tickets and informed the airline that he does
not want PNR data pertaining to his travel to be made available
to government agencies
In response, the airline has
told Mr. De Capitani that regardless of his preferences, the
airline will provide government agencies in Germany "
See: Complaint
and Application for a Temporary Injunction (pdf)
Refugee crisis:
latest news from across Europe (30.4-13.5.19) including:
- Hungary's coerced removal
of Afghan families deeply shocking
- EU research funds go to project
developing swarms of AI border drones
- Report on collective expulsions
at Slovenia-Croatia border
- Common European Asylum System:
Member States oppose mandatory "border procedures"
- Masked men at Evros river
push back Turkish asylum-seekers
SCOTLAND: Political
Undercover Policing in Scotland – report (Public
Interest Law Centre, link):
"Today, the Scottish
Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (SCOPS) release their report
Political Undercover Policing – Scotland.’ There is
a clear need for the Justice Secretary in Scotland – Humza
Yousaf MSP – to urgently review the evidence presented in
this report and to order an independent and transparent public
inquiry into undercover political policing in Scotland."
PRESS
RELEASE: Mytilene, Greece: Peaceful demonstration and the human
right to freedom of assembly prevails
"Yesterday,
9 April 2019, in the Misdemeanours Court of Mytilene, the 110
on trial for resistance against authorities, rioting, and illegal
occupation of public property were found not-guilty of all charges
against them.
The charges
were brought last year, after a peaceful sit-in of approximately
180 refugees took place in a small part of Sappho Square in the
centre of Mytilene, Lesvos, between April 17- 23, 2018, in protest
against poor living conditions in Moria Camp, lack of medical
care and access to health services, imprisonment on the island
and the long delay in their asylum process. The trigger of the
mobilisation was the hospitalisation and death of an Afghan asylum
seeker with serious health problems."
EU: Frontex
gets ready to deploy to the Balkans
The European Border and Coast
Guard Agency, Frontex, is preparing to deploy officers to Albania
at the end of May for an operation at the Greek-Albanian border,
despite a drop in the number of illegal border-crossings detected
by the agency last year.
French
police watchdog to investigate 'truncheon rape' video (The Local, link):
"French investigators
are looking at several videos that appear to show police violence
during May Day demonstrations in Paris, including one showing
an officer push his truncheon inside the trousers of an arrested
man.
EU: Construction
of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS):
progress reports from Frontex and Europol
Frontex and Europol have submitted
reports to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU
outlining progress in the construction of the European Travel
Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), a 'travel permission'
system akin to the US ESTA, the legislation for which was approved
in September 2018.
EU: Common
European Asylum System: deadlock in the Council as "frontline"
Member States oppose mandatory "border procedures"
Council discussions
on controversial proposals for dealing with asylum applications
at the external borders of the EU hit a wall recently, with "a
large majority" of Member States who favour tougher measures
facing opposition from those on the "frontline". Member
States' diplomatic representatives were called upon to try to
reach a resolution, but the Council is remaining tight-lipped
on the outcome of those discussions.
EU: The
human rights monitoring ship Mare Liberum is being prevented
from leaving port
Germany’s Federal Ministry
of Transportation (Bundesverkehrsministeriums) sent an order
of suspension for the ship Mare Liberum to the German association
of traffic and transportation (Berufsgenossenschaft Verkehr)--which
handles the registration, licenses and flags for ships--to further
scrutinize civil rescue vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.
Refugee
crisis: latest news from across Europe (16-29.4.19) including:
- France delivers boats to
Libya: NGOs demand justice!
- Case filed against Greece
at ECHR over crackdown on humanitarian groups
- European governments' targeting
of migrant solidarity activists must stop
- Legal crackdown on asylum
seekers in Germany
- Starving in Hungary's transit
zones
UK: Launch
of the National Mikey Powell Memorial Family Fund (link):
"The fund will to be
the first permanent national resource of its kind for those affected
by deaths in custody, making small grants available for families
and their campaign groups across the UK to provide practical
domestic assistance, to further the work of their own campaigns
or to assist them in engaging in other local, regional or national
campaigns, events and initiatives."
EU: Police
press ahead with efforts to automate cross-border information-sharing
Police forces are moving ahead
with plans to increasingly automate the sharing of personal data
across EU states, according to documents recently shared within
the Council of the EU.
EU: National
security and fundamental rights: new paper examines problems
with definitions and the rule of law
The Council of Bars & Law
Societies of Europe has issued a paper examining the protection
of fundamental rights in the context of national security, focusing
in particular on the way "national security" is legally
defined.
GREECE: Racist
Violence Recording Network: Annual Report 2018 (pdf):
"In 2018, the Racist
Violence Recording Network (RVRN) recorded an increase in incidents
of racist violence, especially against refugees and migrants.
This increase is linked to the political polarization at a global
level regarding the reception of refugees and migrants, coupled
with national and local factors shaping the situation in Greece."
SPAIN: Ethnic
profiling in Catalonia: for every police identity check on a
Spanish national, there are seven checks on foreigners
Black or ethnic minority individuals
or those with a foreign nationality are stopped more frequently
by Catalan police officers than those who are white and/or have
Spanish nationality, according to a recent report by the organisation
Pareu de Parar-me (Stop Stopping Me).
GERMANY: Investigation
against activist artists dropped, but questions remain
(DW, link):
"The 16-month criminal
investigation against the artist collective Center for Political
Beauty (Zentrum für Politische Schönheit, ZPS) has
been suspended, Thuringian State Premier Bodo Ramelow announced
on Monday."
Refugee
crisis: latest news from across Europe (9-15.4.19) including:
- Safe harbours: the cities
defying the EU to welcome migrant
- Joint Statement – the
case of Alan Kurd
- Switzerland: Authorities
must drop absurd charges against priest who showed compassion
to asylum-seeker
EU:
French
anti-terrorist unit demands removal of adverts, books, US-government
produced reports from web archives
France's
Internet Referral Unit has been busy sending requests to the
Internet Archive for the removal of hundreds of web pages, but
the Archive has said there is a serious problem - none of the
URLs in question contain terrorist propaganda.
The pages that
the French unit wants the Internet Archive to remove include
works from the American Libraries collection, old television
adverts and programmes, the Smithsonian Libraries, television
broadcasts of the US House of Representatives and even an academic
paper entitled 'Spectrum Sharing in Cognitive Radio with Quantized
Channel Information'.
EU: Council
wants a "comprehensive study" on data retention that
considers "a future legislative initiative"
The Council of the EU is set
to ask the European Commission to "prepare a comprehensive
study" on the legal possibilities for retention of telecommunications
data for law enforcement purposes, to be ready by the end of
2019. That study should include "the consideration of a
future legislative initiative," according to a set of draft
conclusions due to be discussed in a Council working party tomorrow.
Top reports
See: Resources
for researchers: Statewatch Analyses: 1999-ongoing
SECILE Project:
Borderline: The EU's New Border Surveillance Initiatives:
Assessing the Costs and Fundamental Rights Implications of EUROSUR
and the "Smart Borders" Proposals (pdf) A study by the
Heinrich Böll Foundation. Written by Dr. Ben Hayes and Mathias
Vermeulen: "Unable to tackle the root of the problem,
the member states are upgrading the Union’s external borders.
Such a highly parochial approach taken to a massive scale threatens
some of the EU’s fundamental values - under the pretence
that one’s own interests are at stake. Such an approach
borders on the inhumane."
How the EU works and justice and home
affairs decision-making (pdf)
Statewatch's
20th Anniversary Conference, June 2011: Statewatch
conference speeches
TNI/Statewatch:
Counter-terrorism,
'policy laundering' and the FATF - legalising surveillance, regulating
civil society
(pdf) by Ben Hayes
Statewatch publication:
Guide
to EU decision-making and justice and home affairs after the
Lisbon Treaty
(pdf) by Steve Peers, Professor of Law, University of Essex,
with additional material by Tony Bunyan
Neoconopticon: the EU security-industrial
complex
(pdf) by Ben Hayes
The Shape of Things to Come (pdf) by Tony Bunyan
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