Politics

Counter-terrorism measures across Europe threaten vital freedoms

We must scrutinise Trump’s Travel Ban without ignoring the deeply troubling measures being passed elsewhere

February 17, 2017
©Yui Mok/PA Archive/PA Images
©Yui Mok/PA Archive/PA Images

The world’s focus is rightly on Donald Trump’s counter-terrorism measures at the moment, and while those deserve all the scrutiny they are receiving, many security measures closer to home perhaps deserve just as much. Across the European Union, governments have been introducing and expanding counter-terror laws that threaten to have devastating consequences for privacy in the UK—and beyond.

As a result of these measures, as well as a general atmosphere of suspicion, passengers have removed from planes because they “looked like terrorists,” women banned from wearing full body swimsuits on the beach in France, refugee children in Greece arrested for playing with plastic guns and puppeteers arrested in Spain for “glorifying terrorism.” We’re a way off the full dystopia yet, but it is no surprise that George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is topping the best-seller lists at the moment.

When the UK government passed a law last November allowing the mass collection of data from all UK citizens, it gave itself some of the most sweeping surveillance powers not just in Europe, but in the world. The Investigatory Powers Act, more popularly known as the “Snoopers’ Charter,” allows for the indiscriminate collection of data: web and phone companies will be required to store records of every website visited by every UK citizen for 12 months, for access by the police and security services.

With government ministers responsible for authorising data collection with minimal judicial oversight, there are serious concerns about proper independence at the decision-making level. Warrants for surveillance fail to target specific individuals based on a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and as such fall foul of the UK’s human rights obligations.

Amnesty International itself has been the target of the UK’s surveillance powers. When we mounted a legal challenge to the UK mass surveillance programmes Edward Snowden revealed in 2013, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which hears complaints about surveillance by public bodies, told us that UK government agencies had spied on our communications.

The gravest privacy concerns are outlined in a recent Amnesty report on the human rights impact of counter-terror measures across the EU. The unfortunate reality is that across the continent, such measures threaten to unravel core freedoms that we have long taken for granted.

In Poland, for example, foreign nationals are particular targets of the country’s 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law. They can be subjected to a range of covert surveillance measures, including wire-tapping, monitoring of electronic communications, and surveillance of telecommunications networks and devices without any judicial oversight for the first three months (after which surveillance can be extended via a court order). Such surveillance is permitted if there is a “fear,” not even a reasonable suspicion, that a foreign national may be involved in terrorism-related activities.

In France, the state of emergency which begun after the Charlie Hebdo attacks has been renewed five times, standardising a range of intrusive measures, including powers to ban demonstrations and conduct searches without judicial warrants. In several countries, including the UK, constitutional amendments or legislation have made it easier to declare a formal state of emergency or grant special powers to security and intelligence services, often with little or no judicial oversight.

To use an example from Hungary, a new law allows wide-reaching executive powers in the event of a declared emergency, including the banning of public assemblies, severe restrictions on freedom of movement and the freezing of assets. Vaguely-defined provisions grant powers to suspend laws and fast-track new ones and deploy the army to quell disturbances.

All of these measures disproportionately affect refugees and migrants, human rights activists and minority groups, with many EU countries attempting to draw links between the refugee crisis and the threat of terrorism. Indeed, on 8th February it was announced that Britain will not be taken any more unaccompanied child refugees. Whether this is down to security concerns is unclear—but in the climate, it is perhaps even more troubling than it would otherwise be.

The worry is that these discriminatory actions are increasingly seen as “acceptable” in the national security context. They are not.

Of course, protecting citizens’ rights to life is an essential task of government—there is an urgent need to protect people from terrorism. But given the febrile state of European politics, we should all be wary of the range of powers being handed over to governments. We must be vigilant and take a stand against legislation that, in the name of security, undermines civil liberties and human rights.