Lack of special snooping laws ‘hinders anti-terrorism efforts’

By David Cronin

Date: 08/07/04

THE ability to combat terrorism in several EU states is hampered by a lack of adequate laws on when phone-tapping and other "specialist investigative techniques" can be used, according to the Union's anti-terrorism coordinator.

In a document obtained by European Voice, Gijs de Vries complains that there is insufficient legislation allowing telecommunications interception in Portugal, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Sweden. As a result, "the capacity to collect information is limited, as well as the possibility to prevent and anticipate a terrorist act".

Sources from two of those countries last night (7 July) said that their governments were endeavouring to plug the loopholes identified by de Vries.

In Belgium, the federal police are able to monitor phone calls, faxes or emails under certain circumstances but the intelligence services do not have the right to do so. A spokeswoman for the justice ministry said officials had prepared draft legislation to remedy the shortcomings to be presented to ministers in the national government by the end of this month.

Sweden only allows measures such as phone-bugging or placing a hidden camera in a room in cases where a prosecutor investigating a crime authorizes those steps. A governmental commission, which is studying how surveillance can be used to prevent offences, is scheduled to complete its deliberations by Spring 2005.

Another weakness in the Union's anti-terrorism work, according to de Vries's report, is the absence of a strategy on intelligence-sharing.

He says the effectiveness of security cooperation schemes in the Union have "never really been examined in detail" by the working groups handling terrorism issues at the Council of Ministers, even though the number of such systems is growing.

Member states tend to use the various channels "without any predefined strategy or policy", he says, accusing them of "a lack of forethought".

Combined with "an ever-increasing daily influx of data", this has, he says, "very often resulted in duplication of effort that is undoubtedly prejudicial to the smooth running of services and their efficiency in terms of international cooperation".

Appointed the Union's first anti-terrorism supremo following the 11 March bombings in Madrid, de Vries has been charged with preparing for EU justice ministers a report on "national arrangements" to deter such atrocities. His paper is to be completed by September.

His provisional findings complain that "no member state has established any means of measuring the effectiveness of the existing networks [for data exchange], even less their performance not only in terms of cost/efficiency but also of streamlining resources".

De Vries also notes contrasting views between some governments about how Europol should evolve. While Germany is in favour of granting greater operational powers to The Hague-based police agency, Belgium and Portugal "would rather see Europol as a preferred channel to information".

Although he says that cooperation is slowly being improved between Europol and national law enforcement bodies, he observes that the latter do not perceive "the added value" of Europol's work compared with bilateral liaison.

To remedy that situation, he argues that Europol needs to be assigned a "sufficient number" of analysts and that member states should assign specialist staff to deal with them. Following the Madrid bombs, Europol Director Jürgen Storbeck asked EU governments for an additional 20 analysts, with specialist expertise in sifting through information about terrorism.

The ability to combat terrorism in several EU states is hampered by a lack of adequate laws on when phone tapping and other 'specialist investigative techniques' can be used, according to the EU's anti-terrorism coordinator, Gijs de Vries.