European Commission makes blurry statement on Echelon
Carte blanche for secret services while new ENFOPOL-plans are still in the making
Activities of the intelligence agencies fall outside the scope of Commissions competence; Commission doesn't confirm, nor denies the existence of Echelon; Council is still working on the updating of the interception requirements (IUR).
Today, European Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, responsible for Enterprise and Information Society, made a very blurry statement on Echelon. The commision was asked by the European Parliament if they could confirm the existence of Echelon, as described in the report of Duncan Campell.
Mister Liikanen responded by stating first that the Commission has no competence on intelligence matters. It's the sole responsibility of the member states. The commissioner stated the Commission had sought clarification from the United Kingdom on Echelon. In a letter, received from the United Kingdom, it says according to commissioner Likanen, British intelligence services work within a legal framework which sets out explicitly the purposes for which interception may be authorised, namely national security, safeguarding the nation's economic well-being and the prevention and detection of serious crime.
Commissioner Liikanen also mentioned a lettre from the United States government, it received a day before. According to Liikanen, the United States says its intelligence community is not engaged in industrial espionage and do not collect proprietary, technical or financial information for the benefit of private firms.
Commissionair Liikanen didn't make a clear statement on wether the Commission thinks Echelon exists or not. He just mentioned that by nature, those involved in intelligence matters are not able to confirm or deny their existence. Liikanen admitted the existance of technological possibilities to intercept electronic communications, and added: "There is no evidence to say that the available technologies are not used."
By stressing the Commission has no competences in the field of intelligence, it is clear the Commission is obtaining an advance in a possible inquiry by the parliament on Echelon. "The Greens want to know if the EU Commission and the Council have done enough to protect EU citizens from being spied on in their professional and private lives," Green member Lannoye yesterday explained the purpose of the inquiry on a press conference.
The Portuguese minister Gomez of Home Affairs stated in the European Parlimaent that the European justice ministers will be discussing the matter during their next meeting of the Council of Justice and Home Affairs on the end of may. According to the Austrian online-magazine Futurezone Gomez also acknowledged the existence of Echelon and critizised it, but the Internet-News-Channel of the ORF falls short of any direct quotations.
Fur the same purpose, Liikanen stressed the European Commission is promoting actively the use of encryption to safeguard the electronic communications of bussines and citizens. "The Commission considers that enhancing the security of communications over Internet by using encryption is a priority," Liikanen told parliament.
But he also underlined the need of some sort of control on ecryption, by defending the Wassenaar-agreement and the dual-use export control regime of the European Union on encryption products. "The Commission recognises the need to balance availability of encryption products with concerns of public security and fight against crime." Likannen added that "the European Commission is working on a better encryption system to protect its own communication structures".
The same line of reasoning Liikanen used in a explanation on the Commissions policy on dataprotection. The Commission promotes according to mister Liikanen a high level of dataprotection, but activities in the field of intelligence gathering and police and justice cooperation are excluded from this, because the Commission doesn't have competence in this field. He explicitly mentioned an article of the telecommunications dataprotection directive, which says the directive does not apply to activities of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Justice and Home Affairs of the European Union. This article mentiones "economic well-being of the member states when the activities relate to State security matters" as excluded from the rules on dataprotection.
One particular line of Mister Liikanen is of interest. He confirmed that the Council on Justice and Home Affairs is still working on the "updating of the Council Resolution of 17 january 1995", the so called Enfopol 98 documents Telepolis revealed. He dind't mention how far the work is underway, or when decisions on this are expected.