‘Minority Report’ tactics won’t beat terrorists

Date: 28/11/02

By Simon Coss

A CONTROVERSIAL EU plan to try to identify potential terrorists before they commit a crime poses a serious threat to civil liberties in the EU, one of the Union's leading citizens' rights campaigners has warned.

The proposal to create a set of 'terrorist profiles' to be circulated to EU law- enforcement agencies is likely to be adopted by EU Justice and Home Affairs ministers at the end of this month.

But Tony Bunyan, head of civil rights watchdog Statewatch claims the proposal is fundamentally flawed.

'Every terrorist has a moustache. Great,' he said ironically.

'One has to be very doubtful about this sort of initiative. You are targeting a stereotype and the problem is that you could end up targeting innocent people who just happen to fit the profile,' Bunyan added.

Some observers, who have seen the plan, say it bears a resemblance to events portrayed in US filmmaker Steven Spielberg's futuristic blockbuster Minority Report. In the thriller, supercop Tom Cruise works for the department of 'pre-crime', which uses clairvoyants to help it arrest murderers before they kill.

The supernatural obviously plays no part in the EU initiative.

But a draft version of the plan, discussed by Union ambassadors this month, suggests drawing-up a list of 'physical, psychological or behavioural variables which have been identified as typical of persons involved in terrorist activities and may have some predictive value'.

Variables listed in the draft plan include a person's nationality, their age, the way they arrived on EU territory, where they are staying, their place of birth, whether they are able to use advanced technologies, their family situation and their 'physical characteristic'.

Bunyan insists such a wide-ranging definition of a terrorist suspect is so broad as to be useless. 'This looks to me like a police initiative. The intelligence services would never use such general criteria, they concentrate on much more specific cases,' he argued.

'Profiling can sometimes be useful but not like this. It only really works when you have a specific suspect in mind,' he added.

Other critics argue that the plan will simply serve to strain relations with some of Europe's ethnic minorities even further than they are already.

'This is very worrying. When they talk about physical characteristics I think it's pretty clear what they mean,' Jean-Luc Robert, an advisor on civil liberties questions to the European Parliament's Green group, said.

'In French we talk about the délit de sale geule [the crime of having the wrong face] and that seems to be what we have here,' he added.

Bunyan also said he was extremely worried about another new measure recently adopted as part of the Union's current anti-terrorism campaign. He said a plan to create a standard EU form for exchanging information on terrorists, which was formally rubber- stamped by EU ministers at a meeting in Brussels earlier this month, will in reality be used to help police crack down on peaceful protestors.

In a communiqué released after the meeting, ministers said the form would mainly be used to help the European Union's law enforcement agencies prevent terrorist activities at 'large international events'.

Diplomats argue that, among other things, the new document could help track down terrorists who try to use propaganda to destabilise major international meetings.

But Bunyan is sceptical. 'There is little doubt this has very little to do with terrorists,' he said.

'No real terrorist group would stand outside an EU summit or G8 meeting and hand out leaflets,' he argued.

A controversial EU plan to try to identify potential terrorists before they commit a crime poses a serious threat to civil liberties, one of the European Union's leading citizens' rights campaigners has warned.