EU Surveillance Studies Disclosed By Pirate Party

Spliffster writes "The German Pirate Party has disclosed some secret documents on how the EU is planning to monitor citizens. The so called INDECT Documents describe how a seamless surveillance could (or should) be implemented across Europe. The use of CCTV cameras, the Internet (social networks), and even the use of UAVs are mentioned as data sources. Two of the nine documents can be downloaded from the German Pirate Party's website (PDFs in English)."

Comments

They have an "ethics board"

[Animats]

The project has a 10-member "ethics board".

• 2 members are cops.
• 1 member is a retired cop.
• 1 member is a "human rights lawyer" who works for a police department.
• 1 member is a criminologist
• 4 members are involved in developing the technology.
• 1 member is a professor of ethics at Oxford.

Re:Not secret

[ludwigf]

Those documents aren't secret. They were released to the public by the INDECT project itself, ages ago. Right here!

Look again. The "D1.1 Report on the collection and analysis of user requirements" is not public available though the link you posted.

Flamebait

[antientropic]

This is silly. The EU isn't "planning" anything. INDECT is an FP7 research project. So it's a bunch of universities and industrial partners that happened to get funding from the EU because the reviewers thought it was a scientifically interesting proposal. That doesn't mean anything the researchers come up with is EU policy. Besides, the EU doesn't have any authority or power whatsoever to impose a police state on its members.

(They have a FAQ, by the way.)

What??

[captainpanic]

I know FP7 projects. The EU is definitely interested in the outcome. They cost many millions of euros. It's not just an exercise.

Not all the outcomes of FP7 projects (or FP6 or older ones) will be used, but it shows a trend in which way the EU thinks that Europe should go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Framework_Programme#FP7_Specific_Programmes

Part of the FP7 projects are quite fundamental, and therefore it is unlikely that they include "implementation", but the fact that they don't plan to implement this doesn't make me feel any more comfortable.

And the EU has LOADS of power to impose laws on its members. Already, the majority of laws in Europe come from Brussels... http://www.jcm.org.uk/blog/2009/06/what-percentage-of-laws-come-from-the-eu/
And with the Lisbon "Treaty", the decision making in Brussels was recently streamlined to make it all a little faster.

Re:What??

[Kiuas]

You missed something extremely important there.

Already, the majority of laws in Europe come from Brussels

I'm sorry, but that is just flatout wrong.

The majority of trade laws and laws relating to agriculture/production come from Brussels. But even under the Lisbon treaty the EU has no power whatsoever to impose criminal laws on its member nations. Therefore, even if the EU wanted to force police-state like control over its citizens, it has no means of doing so. EU does try to promote international police co-operation through Europol but Europol is just an organazation transfering and managing information, it has no rights to do arrests or search homes etc - all it can do is try and help local police forces to locate wanted high-profile criminals by relaying information from foreign agencies.

Don't get wrong, I'm as worried as the next /. about these kinds of projects but despite all the scaremongering the EU isn't quite as scary as you seem to think it is.

Re:This is why we vote Pirate

[Gordonjcp]

The royal family don't really have anything to do with government. They're more of a tourist attraction. I prefer the zoo, myself.

Re:This is why we vote Pirate

[mcgrew]

In 1970 there was a massive, peaceful protest against the Vietnam war at Kent State University. The government reacted by killing protesters.

I was a senior in high school when it happened, about a month before graduation. It was a relly big deal at the time, all over the news.