European Organisations in the Campaign
For immediate release:
Public Discussion of Enfopol Plans Necessary
The Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft
(FITUG) urges the Council of the European Union to stop the
plans of the EU-Council Group »Enforcement Police«
known as »Enfopol«.
Enfopol is the draft of a resolution for the Council for Justice and Interior of the European Union. It shall extend the resolution of the Council from January 17 1995 on new technologies, such as satellite communication and the Internet.
According to the draft law enforcement agencies shall have access to the entire telecommunications, the traffic and associated data of suspect persons in real time. Moreover network operators shall not only provide appropriate interfaces but have to enable interception in the shortest possible time.
Thereby the Enfopol resolution closely resembles the draft for the German telecommunications interception decree (Telekommunikationsüberwachungsverordnung (TKÜV)), which was discussed in 1998: It demands a very complete infrastructure for interception at the cost of telecom-providers.
After sharp protests from all sides the TKÜV was deferred by the German Ministry of Economics in July last year, because the need for an extensive public discussion was realised. In the case of Enfopol the discussion is avoided by shifting the demands onto the level of the European Union: The documents have been played into the hands of journalists, were disclosed by members of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign and ministries evade inquiries.
Yet Enfopol increases the necessity of a public discussion:
- The draft excludes the question of the costs for such measures. Yet the discussion about the TKÜV last year already showed that they can neither be financed by service providers nor the state.
- Various European countries show tendencies to refrain from a regulation of cryptography. Enfopol opposes them with the frank demand for the provision of plaintext. Thereby a backdoor is opened for attempts to restrict the use of cryptographic methods.
- The consequences such an interception machinery would have for the privacy of citizens and data protection are disregarded as well. Without doubt new technologies pose new challenges for investigations of the police. Answering this with an excessive expansion of the competences of the police disregards the proportion of means.
Having regard that the European Union has already somedeficit on democratic legitimacy, the secret-mongering around Enfopol und the attempt to impose such far-reaching measures bypassing a public discussion can only be seen as humiliating and infringing to standards of an open pluralistic and democratic society.
Having regard that the European Union has already some deficit on democratic legitimacy, the secret-mongering around Enfopol und the attempt to impose such far-reaching measures bypassing a public discussion can only be seen as humiliating and infringing to standards of an open pluralistic and democratic society.
FITUG asks the European Council to
- defer the Enfopol plans,
- make the draft including technical details public and
- set going a europewide discussion of the scheme.
Background Material
- The resolution of 1995:
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/lif/dat/en_496Y1104_01.html- The Enfopol papers (German):
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/enfo/default.html- Die Telekommunikationsüberwachungsverordnung (TKÜV) (German):
ftp://ftp.iks-jena.de/pub/mitarb/lutz/hacking/gov/- Stellungnahme von FITUG und IN zur TKÜV (German)
ftp://ftp.iks-jena.de/pub/mitarb/lutz/hacking/gov/tkuev.stellungnahme.Fitug-IN.txt- About FITUG (German):
http://www.fitug.de/
Contact:
Rigo Wenning (rigo@fitug.de)
Axel Horns (axel.horns@fitug.de)
