Euro report downplays Echelon dangers, say Greens

A motion calling on the European Parliament to ask Germany and England to stop U.S. intelligence services from intercepting further electronic communications on their territory unless they agree to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights was approved by the Parliament's Echelon committee on Tuesday.

But the committee's report, of which the motion forms part, was criticized by members of the European Parliament Green group, who said it "plays down the dangers of Echelon," according to a statement issued Wednesday by German Member of the European Parliament Ilka Schröder.

The report found that a global telephone-tapping service dubbed Echelon has been intercepting messages and conversations on behalf of the U.S. intelligence services since 1978. Published at the end of May, it was seen as the first official acknowledgement by the Parliament of the existence of the electronic eavesdropping network.

"The report makes an important point in emphasizing that Echelon does exist, but it stops short of drawing political conclusions," said Schröder in the statement.

Among the resolutions contained in the report of the Temporary Committee on the Echelon interception system are calls for the monitoring bodies responsible for scrutinizing the activities of the secret services to "attach great importance to the protection of privacy, regardless of whether the individuals concerned are their own nationals, other EU nationals or third-country nationals."

In addition, the report calls for the governments of Germany and the U.K. to "make the authorization of further communications interception operations by U.S. intelligence services on their territory conditional on their compliance with the ECHR." The report goes on to explain this to mean "to stipulate that they should be consistent with the principle of proportionality, that their legal basis should be accessible and that the implications for individuals should be foreseeable."

The report, which was approved 27 votes to 5, with 2 abstentions, in a vote of the committee on Tuesday night local time, will be presented to a plenary session of the European Parliament this autumn, most likely on Sept. 5, said David Lowe, head of the committee's secretariat. The plenary debate gives the European Union presidency and the Council and the European Commission an opportunity to make a statement, bringing all views out into the open, he said.

"We've been working on this report for a year," and now the committee's work is all but finished, Lowe said. It will be complete when the plenary debate is over.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

The report of the Temporary Committee on the Echelon interception system is available here.
The European Parliament can be reached at www.europa.eu.int