UK challenges EU to accept anti-terror measures

[Ebusitanus]

Uh Oh...wonder who is going to suffer from this too?

http://today.reuters.com/business/ne...yID=nL13680188

By Paul Taylor and Marie-Louise Moller
BRUSSELS, July 13 (Reuters) - Britain challenged the European Union on Wednesday to overcome civil liberties concerns and agree to new anti-terrorism measures such as the compulsory storage of phone and Internet usage records.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke told reporters before chairing a special meeting of EU justice and interior ministers that last week's London bombings had given increased urgency to enacting security measures that were already on the bloc's agenda.
The four British men of Pakistani origin suspected of having carried out the attacks that killed at least 52 people on London's transport system last Thursday may well have been part of a "wider community" with international links, he said.
Clarke pressed the European Parliament and EU ministers to accept the need to retain telecoms data to help police and security services investigating terrorist and criminal networks.
"My appeal today both to the parliament and to my colleagues ... is that we really need to get this sorted out because it makes a difference," he said.
In a non-binding resolution last month, the EU legislature rejected a proposal by four states, including Britain, to make telecoms firms keep data for at least a year, citing concerns about proportionality, cost, privacy and civil liberties.
But Clarke said police and intelligence probes had shown it was "fantastically important" to have access to these records to establish and prove in court links between suspects.
"I argue that it is a fundamental civil liberty of people in Europe to be able to go to work on their transport system in the morning without being blown up and subject to terrorist attack."
"The question of civil liberties has to be treated in a proportionate way. It is a different civil liberty question whether you have CCTV or not, or whether you retain telecommunications data, or whether you have biometrics on an ID card, to whether somebody is tortured in a country to which they are sent," Clarke added.
Clarke made clear to Parliament's civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee that while he was willing to debate civil rights with EU lawmakers, he would press ahead for a quick deal among EU governments on the plans to log phone data.

RIGHT TO PRIVACY
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU executive would propose legislation in September to put data retention on a proper legal basis and deal with privacy concerns and the cost to industry.
The EU assembly says such measures should be approved jointly by member states and Parliament to ensure democratic scrutiny, and Clarke's tough stance angered several lawmakers, including Dutch Green member Kathalijne Buitenweg.
"The British presidency is ridiculing the position of the European Parliament, because we are also very concerned about the safety of our citizens," she said.
"The right to privacy is not a holy right. Of course you can infringe privacy, but there needs to be good reason for it."
Buitenweg and other lawmakers said no justification had been made for why logging e-mail and Internet use would boost the fight against terror, prompting Clarke to say he would present a report setting out the added value of such a move.
Britain's agenda for its six-month presidency also calls for improved information sharing among national law enforcement services, a European evidence warrant to speed the cross-border transmission of documents, steps to combat terrorist financing, work to understand the radicalisation and recruitment of young Muslims and measures to protect critical infrastructure.
None of these was an emergency response to the London bombings, Clarke said, "but all ... are given increased urgency and a need for accelerated action by the London bombing."
EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the time had come to "blame and shame" member states that were not implementing anti-terrorism measures agreed after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the March 2004 Madrid train bombings.
The London bombing suspects may well have been part of a broader organisation, Clarke said, adding that international cooperation had already provided valuable help in the probe. "A central hypothesis which has to be tested and investigated is that the individuals that we know about were working within a wider community," he said.