Subject: Telecom eavesdropping......
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 055623 -0600 (CST)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org>
--------------------------------------------------
.........The following was forwarded by Kerrie Christian.....Has anybody
(in Europe) thought about the "big brother" possibilities/realities that
are starting to come out of the new European Union?????......guru......
Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 06:07:41 -0800 (PST)
From: MichaelP
X-Sender: papadop@kira
To: "unlikely.suspects":;
Subject: Talking about the Univ. Declaration of Human Rights ...
Sender: owner-mai-not@flora.org
Precedence: bulk
[This comes on top of their present ability to tap all non-mobile phones,
doesn't it ?}
Cheers
MichaelP
======================
Revealed: secret plan to tap all mobile phones
By Duncan Campbell
Observer (London) Sunday December 6, 1998
Plans for an international network of centres able to tap mobile phones
anywhere in Europe have been prepared by European law enforcement
agencies.
Confidential European Union documents leaked in Germany and obtained by
The Observer outline plans for instant-access centres across Europe,
equipped to tap every type of communications system, including mobile
phones, the Internet, fax machines, pagers and interactive cable
television services.
Under the plan, Enfopol 98, European telecommunications companies will be
required to build tapping connections into their systems. Each EU
country's 'interception interface' must be capable of allowing member
states to tap communications throughout the EU.
The US, Canada and Australia are likely to participate in the network,
giving the FBI and other non-European security agencies access to
communications in Europe.
Enfopol 98 will be put into operation as part of the new European
Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance, which Ministers - including Home
Secretary Jack Straw and Home Office Minister Kate Hoey - discussed at the
EU Justice and Home Affairs Council in Brussels last week.
Final details of the convention are likely to be agreed by the council
early next year. By 2000, member states' parliaments would have to ratify
it as part of national law.
The leaked document was published last week by Telepolis, a German
Internet magazine.
A draft resolution to be sent to Ministers after the convention is in
force specifies 54 requirements for interception laws. When the resolution
reaches the council many technical details will have been hidden.
According to the latest leaked Enfopol 98 document, distributed last
month, they will appear in a 'technical handbook' on interception and in
'accompanying papers'.
By making new laws in this way, Ministers have evaded public scrutiny and
even awareness of their plans. "National parliaments, as well as the
European Parliament and its citizens, are being excluded from the
development of legislation that has the most profound implications for
civil liberties," said Tony Bunyan, director of the European civil
liberties monitoring organisation, Statewatch.
Under the Enfopol plan, interception interfaces in telephone exchanges and
Internet centres must provide 'real time, full-time' access. Security
regulations say 'interception interfaces' must be located in 'barrier
areas with controlled access'. Staff would need security clearances and
have to comply with 'national security regulations', it being illegal to
reveal how many people were tapped or how monitoring was done.
Several tapping centres could listen in at once: 'network operators
(should) make provision for implementing a number of simultaneous
intercepts.'
Communications services are increasingly using cryptography (codes) to
protect the privacy of communications. If they do, Enfopol says the codes
must be broken and information supplied in audible or legible form. 'The
downloading of cryptographic key material should be immediate,' it says,
so that 'an efficient, economic and current operation is guaranteed'.
To make the new tapping system simple and fast to operate, a secret expert
group has been developing a 'tag' system that can identify individuals
wherever they are.
Called the 'International User Requirements for Interception' (IUR), the
data to be passed from country to country include not only names,
addresses and -hone numbers, but credit card numbers, PIN codes, e-mail
addresses, and computer log-on identities and passwords.
Tapping centres will have to be sent information not only about ordinary
phone calls, but also about conference calls, redirected calls, unanswered
calls and even when phones are switched on. Mobile phones will be used to
track a target's movements. 'Law enforcement agencies require information
on the most accurate geographical location known to the network for mobile
subscribers.'
The 40-page document admits the new system 'raises many questions
regarding national sovereignty', and that the 'interception interfaces'
will place heavy costs on companies. But it makes no reference to civil
liberties and human rights. The document "turns civil rights into worthy
platitudes", Austrian Green MEP Johannes Voggenhuber said last week.
In Britain, preliminary drafts of the agreement have not been seen by the
House of Commons but have been reviewed by the House of Lords committee on
the European Community, which has asked for changes to protect individual
privacy.
Last February, the committee told the Government: "The citizen is unlikely
to have confidence in any procedure shrouded in secrecy. The existence and
framework of international mutual assistance involving interception of
telecommunications... should be clear and transparent to all."
** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. **
--
For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and
links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org/
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html