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12-Jun-2004

Survey shows EU terrorism plans threaten liberties

by: Tony Bunyan

London: An organization dedicated to watching what the state does, especially in the field of laws affecting civil liberties, performed a survey on the new EU terrorism laws and came to some surprising conclusions In the rush to stop terrorism in Europe, countries have been passing new laws to combat it on the basis of arguments that some new form of limitation of civil liberties is required. Many organizations would beg to differ. Statewatch is one of them.

They have developed a technique called "Scoreboard" to calculate how certain laws threaten or not civil liberties. Their analysis showed that threats to civil liberties and privacy in EU terrorism plans exist in 27 of the 57 proposals, as these have little or nothing to do with tackling terrorism, because they deal with crime in general and surveillance: In the words of Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor: "Under the guise of tackling terrorism the EU is planning to bring in a swathe of measures to do with crime and the surveillance of the whole population. After the dreadful loss of life and injuries in Madrid we need a response that unites Europe rather than divides it.”

One should ask how much and often the state uses a public’s emotional responses to terrorist acts to pass laws that are clearly unpalatable to the public, but, as responsible citizens, we should ask ourselves what needs to be done to effectively combat terrorism instead of engaging in knee jerk reactions to any state proposal.

Source: Statewatch