[Paleopsych] Omega Foundation: An Appraisal of the Technologies of Political Control

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An Appraisal of the Technologies of Political Control
http://www.nrc.nl/W2/Lab/Echelon/stoa2sept1998.html#1

[Thanks to Laird for this. Note the date. But remember that Michel Foucault, 
who died in 1984, was already predicting the coming of the surveillance 
society. Can anyone report on how far technology has advanced since 1998? The 
website is in Dutch, and I can't evaluate it for its sanity. But the report, 
whether written by site members or not, seems sober.

[Dossier Codenaam Echelon is given as the header of the document, whatever that 
means.]

An Omega Foundation Summary & Options Report For The European Parliament
SEPTEMBER 1998

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    1. Introduction

    2. THE ROLE & FUNCTION OF POLITICAL CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES

    3. RECENT TRENDS & INNOVATIONS
      * 3.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    4. INNOVATIONS IN CROWD CONTROL WEAPONS
      * 4.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    5. NEW PRISON CONTROL SYSTEMS
      * 5.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    6. INTERROGATION, TORTURE TECHNIQUES & TECHNOLOGIES
      * 6.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    7. DEVELOPMENTS IN SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY
      * 7.1 Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Surveillance Networks
      * 7.2 Algorithmic Surveilance Sysytems
      * 7.3 Bugging & Tapping Devices
      * 7.4 National & International Communications Interceptions Networks

    7.4.1 NSA INTERCEPTION OF ALL EU TELECOMMUNICATIONS
        7.4.2 EU-FBI GLOBAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM

      7.5 Policy Options

    8. REGULATION OF HORIZONTAL PROLIFERATION
      * 8.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    9. CONCLUSIONS

    Annex 1 Bibliography


            AN APPRAISAL OF THE TECHNOLOGIES OF POLITICAL CONTROL

                          A SUMMARY & OPTIONS REPORT

    This report represents a summarised version of an interim study, 'An
    Appraisal of the Technology of Political Control' (PE 166.499),
    (referred to throughout this document as the Interim Report), prepared
    by the Omega Foundation in Manchester and presented to the STOA Panel
    at its meeting of 18 December 1997 and to the Committee on Civil
    Liberties and Internal Affairs on 27 January 1998.

    The Interim Report aroused great interest and the resultant
    high-profile press comment throughout the European Union and beyond,
    indicates the level of public concern about many of the innovations
    detailed by the study. This current report is framed by the same key
    objectives as the Interim Report
    , namely:-

    (i) To provide Members of the European Parliament with a succinct
        reference guide to recent advances in the technology of political
        control;
        (ii) To identify and describe the current state of the art of the
        most salient developments, further clarifying and updating the
        areas of the interim report which have aroused the greatest public
        concern and comment;
        (iii) To present MEP's with an account of current trends both
        within Europe and Worldwide;
        (iv) To suggest policy options covering regulatory strategies for
        the future democratic control and management of this technology;
        (v) To provide some further succinct background material to inform
        the Parliament's response to the proposed declaration by the
        Commission on electronic evesdropping which has been put on the
        agenda for the plenary session of the European Parliament, on
        Wednesday 16 September 1998.

    This report also has seven substantive sections covering (a) the role
    and function of the technologies of political control; (b)recent
    trends and innovations; (c)crowd control weapons; (d)new prisoner
    control technology; (e) new interrogation and torture technologies;
    (f)developments in surveillance technology (including the creation of
    human recognition and tracking devices and the evolution of new global
    police and military telecommunications interceptions networks; (g)the
    implications of vertical and horizontal proliferation of this
    technology and the need for an adequate EU response, to ensure it
    neither threatens civil liberties in Europe, nor reaches the hands of
    tyrants.

    Thus, the purpose of this report is to explore the most recent
    developments in the technology of political control and the major
    consequences associated with their integration into processes and
    strategies of policing and internal control. The report ends each
    section with a series of policy options which might facilitate more
    democratic, open and efficient regulatory control, including specific
    areas where further research is needed to make such regulatory
    controls effective.

    A brief look at the historical development of this concept is
    instructive. Twenty years ago, the British Society for Social
    Responsibility of Scientists (BSSRS) warned about the dangers of a new
    technology of political control. BSSRS defined this technology as "a
    new type of weaponry"..."It is the product of the application of
    science and technology to the problem of neutralising the state's
    internal enemies. It is mainly directed at civilian populations, and
    is not intended to kill (and only rarely does). It is aimed as much at
    hearts and minds as at bodies." For these scientists, "This new
    weaponry ranges from means of monitoring internal dissent to devices
    for controlling demonstrations; from new techniques of interrogation
    to methods of prisoner control. The intended and actual effects of
    these new technological aids are both broader and more complex than
    the more lethal weaponry they complement."

    BSSRS recognised that the weapons and systems developed and tested by
    the USA in Vietnam, and by the UK in its former colonies, were about
    to be used on the home front and that the military industrial complex
    would in the future, rapidly modify its military systems for police
    and internal security use. In other words, a new technology of
    repression was being spawned which would find a political niche in
    Western Liberal democracies. The role of this technology was to
    provide a technical fix which might effectively crush dissent whilst
    being designed to mask the level of coercion being deployed. With the
    advent of the Northern Irish conflict, the genie was out of the bottle
    and a new laboratory for field testing these technologies had emerged.

    There have been quite awesome changes in the technologies available to
    states for internal control since the first BSSRS publication. Some of
    these technologies are highly sensitive politically and without proper
    regulation can threaten or undermine many of the human rights
    enshrined in international law, such as the rights of assembly,
    privacy, due process, freedom of political and cultural expression and
    protection from torture, arbitrary arrest, cruel and inhumane
    punishments and extra-judicial execution.

    Proper oversight of developments in political control technologies is
    further complicated by the phenomena of 'bureaucratic capture' where
    senior officials control their ministers rather than the other way
    round. Politicians both at European and sovereign state level, whom
    citizens of the community have presumed will be monitoring any
    excesses or abuse of this technology on their behalf, are sometimes
    systematically denied the information they require to do that job.

    2. THE ROLE & FUNCTION OF POLITICAL CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES

    Throughout the Nineties, many governments have spent huge sums on the
    research, development, procurement and deployment of new technology
    for their police, para-military and internal security forces. The
    objective of this development work has been to increase and enhance
    each agency's policing capacities. A dominant assumption behind this
    technocratisation of the policing process, is the belief that it has
    created both a faster policing response time and a greater
    cost-effectiveness. The main aim of all this effort has been to save
    policing resources by either automating certain forms of control,
    amplifying the rate of particular activities, or decreasing the number
    of officers required to perform them.

    The resultant innovations in the technology of political control have
    been functionally designed to yield an extension of the scope,
    efficiency and growth of policing power. The extent to which this
    process can be judged to be a legitimate one depends both on one's
    point of view and the level of secrecy and accountability built into
    the overall procurement and deployment procedures. The full
    implications of such developments may take time to assess. It is
    argued that one impact of this process is the militarisation of the
    police and the para-militarisation of the army as their roles,
    equipment and procedures begin to overlap. This phenomena is seen as
    having far reaching consequences on the way that future episodes of
    sub-state violence is handled, and influencing whether those involved
    are reconciled, managed, repressed, 'lost' or efficiently destroyed.

    What is emerging in certain quarters is a chilling picture of ongoing
    innovation in the science and technology of social and political
    control, including: semi-intelligent zone-denial systems using neural
    networks which can identify and potentially punish unsanctioned
    behaviour; the advent of global telecommunications surveillance
    systems using voice recognition and other biometric techniques to
    facilitate human tracking; data-veillance systems which can match
    computer held data to visual recognition systems or identify
    friendship maps simply by analysing the telephone and email links
    between who calls whom; new sub-lethal incapacitating weapons used
    both for prison and riot control as well as in sub-state conflict
    operations other than war; new target acquisition aids, lethal weapons
    and expanding dum-dum like ammunition which although banned by the
    Geneva conventions for use against other state's soldiers, is finding
    increasing popularity amongst SWAT and special forces teams; discreet
    order vehicles designed to look like ambulances on prime time
    television but which can deploy a formidable array of weaponry to
    provide a show of force in countries like Indonesia or Turkey, or
    spray harassing chemicals or dye onto protestors. Such marking appears
    to be kid-glove lin its restraint but tags all protestors so that the
    snatch squads can arrest them later, out of the prying lenses of CNN.

    Whilst there are many opposing schools of thought on why these changes
    are happening now, few doubt that there are fundamental changes taking
    place in the types of tactics, techniques and technologies available
    to internal security agencies for policing purposes. Yet many
    questions remain unanswered, unconsidered or under-researched. Why for
    example, did such a transformation in the technology used for
    -political control dramatically change over the last twenty five
    years? Is there any significance in the fact that former communist
    regimes in the Warsaw Treaty Organisation and continuing centralised
    economic systems such as China, are beginning to adopt such
    technologies? What are the reasons behind a global convergence of the
    technology of political control deployed in the North and South, the
    East and West?

    What are the factors responsible for generating the adoption of such
    new policing technology - was it technology push or demand pull? What
    new tools for policing lie on the horizon and what are the dynamics
    behind the process of innovation and the need for a vast arsenal of
    different kinds of technology rather than just a few? Are the many
    ways this technology affects the policing process fully understood?
    Who controls the patterns of police technology procurement and what
    are the corporate influences?

    The technology of political control produces a continuum of flexible
    options which stretch from modern law enforcement to advanced state
    suppression. It is multi-functional and has led to a rapid extension
    of the scope, efficiency and growth of policing power, creating
    policing revolutions both with Europe, the US and the rest of the
    world. The key difference being the level of democratic accountability
    in the manner in which the technology is applied. Yet because of a
    process of technological and decision drift these instruments of
    control, once deployed quickly become 'normalised.' Their secondary
    and unanticipated effects often lead to a paramilitarisation of the
    security forces and a militarisation of the police - often because the
    companies which produce them service both markets.

    3. RECENT TRENDS & INNOVATIONS

    Since the 'Technology of Political Control' was first written (Ackroyd
    et al.,1977) there has been a profusion of technological innovations
    for police, paramilitary, intelligence and internal security forces.
    Many of these are simple advances on the technologies available in the
    1970's. Others such as automatic telephone tapping, voice recognition
    and electronic tagging were not envisaged by the original BSSRS
    authors since they did not think that the computing power needed for a
    national monitoring system was feasible. The overall drift of this
    technology is to increase the power and reliability of the policing
    process, either enhancing the individual power of police operatives,
    replacing personnel with less expensive machines to monitor activity
    or to automate certain police monitoring, detection and communication
    facilities completely. A massive Police Industrial Complex has been
    spawned to service the needs of police, paramilitary and security
    forces, evidenced by the number of companies now active in the
    market.. An overall trend is towards globalisation of these
    technologies and a drift towards increasing proliferation.

    One core trend has been towards a militarisation of the police and a
    paramilitarisation of military forces in Europe. In some European
    countries, that trend is reversed,e.g. in 1996, the Swiss government
    (Federal Council and the Military Department) made plans to re-equip
    the Swiss Army Ordungsdienst with 118 million Swiss Francs of
    less-lethal weapons for action within the country in times of crisis.
    (These include 12 tanks, armoured vehicles, teargas, rubber shot and
    handcuffs). The decision was made by decree preventing any discussion
    or intervention. Their role will be to help police large scale
    demonstrations or riots and to police frontiers to 'prevent streams of
    refugees coming into Switzerland'.

    There has also been an increasing trend towards convergence - the
    process whereby the technology used by police and the military for
    internal security operations, converges towards being more or less
    indistinguishable. The term also describes the trend towards a
    universal adoption of similar types of technologies by most states for
    internal security and policing. Security companies now produce weapons
    and communications systems for both military and the police. Such
    systems increasingly represent the muscle and the nervous system of
    public order squads. Given the potential civil liberties and human
    rights implications associated with certain technologies of political
    control, there is a pressing need to avoid the risks of such
    technologies developing faster than any regulating legislation.
    MEP'smay wish to consider how best it should develop appropriate
    structures of accountability to prevent undesirable innovations
    emerging via processes of technological creep or decision drift.
    Towards that end, members of the European Parliament may wish to
    consider the following policy options:-

    3.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    (i) Accepting the principle that the process of innovation of new
    systems for use in internal social and political control should be
    transparent, (i.e. open to appropriate public and parliamentary
    scrutiny and be subject to change should unwanted and unanticipated
    consequences emerge;

    (ii) Give consideration to what committee and procedural changes might
    be needed to ensure that Members of the European Parliament are
    adequately informed on issues relating to technologies of political
    control and can effectively act should the need arise;

    (iii) Consider if there is a need to amend the terms of reference of
    the Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs Committee to include powers
    and responsibilities for matters relating to for example, the civil
    liberties and human rights implications of developments in political
    control technologies such as:(a) new crowd and prison control weapons
    and technologies, lethal and less lethal weapons and ammunition;
    (b)developments in surveillance technologies such as data-veillance,
    electronic eavesdropping, CCTV, human recognition and tracking
    systems; (c) private prisons and related equipment and training;; (d)
    torture and interrogation of detainees; (e) any class of technology
    which has been shown in the past to be excessively injurious, cruel,
    inhumane or indiscriminate in its effects.

    4. INNOVATIONS IN CROWD CONTROL WEAPONS

    The Interim Report critically evaluated the so called safety of these
    allegedly 'harmless crowd control weapons.
    Using earlier US military data and empirical data on the kinetic
    energy of all the commonly available kinetic weapons such as plastic
    bullets, it found that much of the biomedical research legitimating
    the introduction of current crowd control weapons is badly flawed. All
    the commonly available plastic bullet ammunition used in Europe
    breaches the severe damage zone of kinetic energy used to assess such
    weapons by the US military scientists. (Over 100,000 plastic bullets
    were withdrawn in the UK in 1996 for possessing excessive kinetic
    energy but according to this report their replacements are still
    excessively injurious). The price of protest should not be death, yet
    given that these weapons are frequently used against bystanders in
    zone clearance operations, this aspect is particularly important.

    Likewise there is a need to consider halting the use of peppergas in
    Europe until independent evaluation of its biomedical effects is
    undertaken. Special Agent Ward the FBI officer who cleared OC in the
    USA was found to have taken a $57,000 kickback to give it the OK.
    Other US military scientists warned of dangerous side effects
    including neurotoxicity and a recent estimate by the International
    Association of Chief Police Officers suggested at least 113 peppergas
    linked fatalities in the US - predominantly from positional asphyxia.
    Amnesty International has said that the use of pepper spray by
    Californian police against peaceful environmental activists, is
    'cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of such deliberateness and
    severity that it is tantamount to torture." (Police deputies pulled
    back protestors heads, opened their eyes and "swabbed" the burning
    liquid directly on to their eyeballs).

    Sometimes when technologies are transferred, their characteristics
    also change. For example CS Sprays authorised for use by the police in
    the UK from 1996 were five times the concentration of similar MACE
    products in the US and have dispersion rates which are five times
    faster. This means that they dump twenty five times as much irritant
    on a targets face as do US products yet were justified as being the
    same. In practice this meant that one former Metropolitan police
    instructor Peter Hodgkinson lost between 40-50% of his corneas after
    he volunteered to be sprayed at the beginning of trails. Most police
    forces in the UK have now adopted the spray which was authorised
    before findings on its alleged safety were published.

    In the early Nineties, much to the disbelief of serious researchers, a
    new doctrine emerged in the US - non-lethal warfare. Its advocates
    were predominantly science fiction writers such as (Toffler A., &
    Toffler,H., 1994) and (Morris,J., & Morris,C., 1990,1994), who found a
    willing ear in the nuclear weapons laboratories of Los Alamos, Oak
    Ridge and Lawrence Livermore. The cynics were quick to point out that
    non-lethal warfare was a contradiction in terms and that this was
    really a 'rice-bowls' initiative, dreamt up to protect jobs in
    beleaguered weapons laboratories facing the challenge of life without
    the cold war.

    This naive doctrine found a champion in Col. John Alexander (who made
    his name in the rather more lethal Phoenix assassination programmes of
    the Vietnam War) and subsequently picked up by the US Defence and
    Justice Departments. After the controversial and overly public beating
    of Rodney King (who was subdued by 'an electro-shock 'taser' before
    being attacked); the excessive firepower deployed by all sides in the
    Waco debacle (where the police used chemical agents which failed to
    end the siege); and the humiliations of the US military missions in
    Somalia - America was in search of a magic bullet which would somehow
    allow the powers of good to prevail without anyone being hurt. Yet US
    doctrine in practice was not that simple, it was not to replace lethal
    weapons with 'non-lethal' alternatives but to augment the use of
    deadly force, in both war and 'operations other than war', where the
    main targets include civilians. A dubious pandora's box of new weapons
    has emerged, designed to appear rather than be safe. Because of the
    'CNN factor' they need to be media friendly, more a case of invisible
    weapons than war without blood. America now has an integrated product
    team consisting of the US Marines, US Airforce, US Special Operations
    Command, US Army, US Navy, DOT, DOJ, DOE, Joint Staff, and CINCS
    Office of SecDef. Bridgeheads for this technology are already emerging
    since one of the roles of this team is to liaise with friendly foreign
    governments.

    Last year, the interim report advised that the Commission should be
    requested to report on the existence of formal liaison arrangements
    with the US, for introducing advanced non-lethal weapons into the EU.
    The urgency of this advice was highlighted in November 1997 for
    example, when a special conference on the 'Future of Non-Lethal
    Weapons', was held in London. A flavour of what was on offer was
    provided by Ms Hildi Libby, systems manager of the US Army's
    Non-lethal Material Programme.

    Ms Libby described the M203 Anti-personnel blunt trauma crowd
    dispersal grenade, which hurtles a large number of small "stinging"
    rubber balls at rioters. The US team also promoted acoustic wave
    weapons that used 'mechanical pressure wave generation' to 'provide
    the war fighter with a weapon capable of delivering incapacitating
    effects, from lethal to non-lethal'; the non-lethal Claymore mine - a
    crowd control version of the more lethal M18A1; ground vehicle
    stoppers; the M139 Volcano mine which projects a net (that can cover a
    football sized field) laced with either razor blades or other
    'immobilisation enhancers' - adhesive or sting; canister launched area
    denial systems; sticky foam; vortex ring guns - to apply vortex ring
    gas impulses with flash, concussion and the option of quickly changing
    between lethal and non-lethal operations; and the underbarrel tactical
    payload delivery system - essentially an M16 which shoots either
    bullets, disabling chemicals, kinetic munitions or marker dye.

    One of the unanticipated consequences of these weapons is that they
    offer a flexible response which can potentially undermine non-violent
    direct action. Used to inflict instant gratuitous punishment, their
    flexibility means that if official violence does tempt demonstrators
    to fight back, the weapons are often just a switch away from street
    level executions.

    At their last conference in Lillehammer, the Nobel Peace Prize winning
    organisation Pugwash came to the conclusion that the term 'non-lethal
    should be abandoned, not only because it covers a variety of very
    different weapons but also because it can be dangerously misleading.
    "In combat situations, 'sub-lethal' weapons are likely to be used in
    co-ordination with other weapons and could increase overall lethality.
    Weapons purportedly developed for conventional military or
    peacekeeping use are also likely to be used in civil wars or for
    oppression by brutal governments."

    Weapons developed for police use may encourage the militarisation of
    police forces or be used for torture. If a generic term is needed
    'less-lethal or pre-lethal weapons might be preferable." Such
    misgivings are certainly borne out by recent developments. US expert
    Bill Arkin has warned that the new generation of acoustic weapons can
    rupture organs, create cavities in human tissue and produce shockwaves
    of 170 decibels and potentially lethal blastwave trauma. Pugwash
    considered that "each of the emerging 'less-lethal weapons
    technologies required urgent examination and that their development or
    adoption should be subject to public review.' Informed by principle 3
    and 4 of the United Nations Basic Principles on The Use of Force &
    Firearms , MEP's may wish to consider the following options:-

    4.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    (i) Reaffirm the European Parliamentary demand of May 1982, for a ban
    on the use of plastic bullets;

    (ii) Establish objective criteria for assessing the biomedical effects
    of so called non-lethal weapons that are independent from commercial
    or governmental research;

    (iii) Seek confirmation from the Commission that: Member States are
    fully aware of their responsibilities under Principles 3 and 4 of the
    United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force & Firearms by Law
    Enforcement Officials and to ask for clarification of exactly what
    steps individual Member States are taking to ensure that these are
    fully met, given the power of "less-lethal weapons" changes and
    whether consistent standards apply;

    (iv) Request the Commission to report on the existing liaison
    arrangements for the second generation of non-lethal weapons to enter
    European Union from the USA and call for an independent report on
    their alleged safety as well as their intended and unforseen social
    and political effects.

    (v) During the interim period, consider restricting the deployment by
    the police, the military or paramilitary special forces, of US made or
    licensed 2nd. generation chemical irritant, kinetic, acoustic, laser,
    electromagnetic frequency, capture, entanglement, injector or
    electrical disabling and paralysing weapons, within Europe.

    (vi). Establish the following principles across all EU Member States:

    (a) Research on chemical irritants should be published in open
        scientific journals before authorization for any usage is
        permitted and that the safety criteria for such chemicals should
        be treated as if they were drugs rather than riot control agents;
        (b) Research on the alleged safety of existing crowd control
        weapons and of all future innovations in crowd control weapons
        should be placed in the public domain prior to any decision
        towards deployment.
        (c) that deployment of OC (peppergas) should be halted across the
        EU until independent non-FBI funded research has evaluated any
        risks it poses to health.

    5. NEW PRISON CONTROL SYSTEMS

    Some of the equipment described above, such as the surveillance, area
    denial and crowd control technologies, also finds ready use inside
    permanent prisons and houses of correction. Other devices such as the
    area denial, perimeter fencing systems, portable coils of razor wire,
    prison transport vehicles with mini cage cells, to create temporary
    holding centres. Permanent prisons are however, literally custom built
    control environments, where every act and thing, including the
    architecture, the behaviour of the prison officers and daily routines,
    are functionally organised with that purpose in mind. Therefore many
    of the technologies discussed above are built in to the prison
    structure and integral to policing systems used to contain their
    inmates. For example, area denial technology, intruder detection
    equipment and surveillance devices are instrumental in hermetically
    sealing high security prisons. If disturbances develop within a
    prison, the riot technologies and tactics outlined above, are also
    available for use by prison officers. The trend has been to train
    specialized MUFTI (Minimum Force Tactical Intervention) squads for
    this purpose. Outside Europe, irritant gas has been used not only to
    crush revolt but also to punish political detainees or to eject
    reticent prisoners from their cells before execution. The Interim
    Report describes prison restraint techniques using straitjackets, body
    belts, leg shackles, padded cells and isolation units, some of which
    infringe the European Convention against Torture.

    Apart from mechanical restraint, prison authorities have access to
    pharmacological approaches for immobilising inmates, colloquially
    known as 'the liquid cosh.' These vary from psychotropic drugs such as
    anti-depressants, sedatives and powerful hypnotics. Drugs like
    largactil or Seranace offer a chemical strait-jacket and their usage
    is becoming increasingly controversial as prison populations rise and
    larger numbers of inmates are 'treated'. In the USA, the trend is for
    punishment to become therapy: 'behaviour modification' - Pavlovian
    reward and punishment routines using drugs like anectine, producing
    fear or pain, to recondition behaviour. The possibilities of testing
    new social control drugs are extensive, whilst controls are few.
    Prisons form the new laboratories developing the next generation of
    drugs for social reprogramming, whilst military and university
    laboratories provide scores of new psychoactive drugs each year.

    Critics such as Lilly & Knepper (1992, 186-7) argue that in examining
    the international aspects of crime control as industry, more attention
    is needed to the changing activities of the companies which used to
    provide supplies to the military. At the end of the cold war, "with
    defence contractors reporting declines in sales, the search for new
    markets is pushing corporate decision making, it should be no surprise
    to see increased corporate activity in criminal justice." Where such
    companies previously profited from wars with foreign enemies, they are
    increasingly turning to the new opportunities afforded by crime
    control as industry.(Christie, 1994).

    Several European countries are now experiencing a rapid process of
    privatisation of prisons by corporate conglomerations, predominantly
    from the USA. Some of the prisons run by these organisations in the US
    have cultures and control techniques which are alien to European
    traditions. Such a process of privatisation can lead to a bridgehead
    for importing U.S. corrections mentality, methods and technologies
    into Europe and there is a pressing need to ensure a consensus on what
    constitutes acceptable practice. There is a further danger that such
    privatisation will lead to cost cutting practices of human
    warehousing, rather than the more long term beneficial practice of
    prisoner rehabilitation.

    In some European countries, particularly Britain, where changes in
    penal policy are leading to a rapid rise in prison population without
    additional resources being applied to the sector, the imperative is to
    cut costs either through using technology or by privatising prisons.
    Already, the UK Prison Service has compiled a shopping list of
    computer based options with existing CCTV surveillance systems being
    complemented by geophones, identity recognition technology and forward
    looking infra-red systems which can spot weapons and drugs.. Alongside
    such proactive technologies, UK prisons will face increasing pressure
    to tool up for trouble. Much this weaponry including the contract for
    between £950,000 and £2,500,000 of side handled batons, kubotans, riot
    shields etc. made by the Prison Service in March 1995, are likely to
    be originally manufactured in the United States.

    The U.S.A adopts a far more militarised prison regime than anywhere in
    Europe outside of Northern Ireland. A massive prison industrial
    complex has mushroomed to maintain the strict control regimes that
    typify American Houses of Correction. The future prospect is of that
    alien technology coming here, with very little in the way of public or
    parliamentary debate. A few examples of US prison technologies and
    proliferation illustrate the dangers.

    Many prisons in the U.S, use Nova electronic 50,000 volt extraction
    shields, electronic stun prods and most recently the REACT remote
    controlled stun belts. In 1994, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons
    decided to use remote-controlled stun belts on prisoners considered
    dangerous to prevent them from escaping during transportation and
    court appearances. By May 1996, the Wisconsin Department of
    Corrections said that no longer will inmates be chained together "but
    will be restrained by the use of stun belts and individual
    restraints."

    Promotional literature from US company Stun Tech of Cleveland, Ohio,
    claims that its high pulse stun belt can be activated from 300 feet.
    After a warning noise, the Remote Electronically Activated Control
    Technology (REACT) belt inflicts a 50,000 volt shock for 8 seconds.
    This high pulsed current enters the prisoners left kidney region then
    enters the body of the victim along blood channels and nerve pathways.
    Each pulse results in a rapid body shock extending to the whole of the
    brain and central nervous system. The makers promote the belt 'for
    total psychological supremacy..of potentially troublesome prisoners.'
    Stunned prisoners lose control of the bladders and bowels. 'After all,
    if you were wearing the contraption around your waist that by the mere
    push of a button in someone's hand, could make you defecate or urinate
    yourself, what would you do from the psychological standpoint?"
    Amnesty International wants Washington to ban the belts because they
    can be used to torture, and calls them, 'cruel,inhuman and degrading.
    "Some officials say the belts can save money because fewer guards
    would be needed. But human rights activists and some jailers oppose
    them as the most degrading new measure in an increasingly barbaric
    field." (Kilborn,1997) Already, some European countries are in the
    process of evaluating stunbelt systems for use here.(Marks, 1996)

    Without proper licensing and a clear consensus on what is expected
    from private prisons in Europe, multinational private prison
    conglomerations could act as a bridgehead for similar sorts of
    technology to further enter the European crime control industry.
    Proper limits need to be set when a licence is granted with a
    comprehensive account taken of that company's past track record in
    terms of civil liberties, rehabilitation and crisis management rather
    than just cost per prisoner held. Amnesty International in the USA is
    currently asking the large multi-national prison corporations to sign
    up to the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and a similar
    approach with associated contractual obligations, might prove to be a
    useful way forward here in Europe. Members of the European Parliament
    may wish to consider the following options:-

    5.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    (i) To let commercial requirements to make profits from prisoners
    become the primary criterion in running Europe's private jails;

    (ii). Further examine the use of kill fencing and lethal area denial
    systems in all prisons within the European Union, whether private or
    public, with a view to their prohibition;

    (iii) That the European Parliament establish a rigorous independent
    and impartial inquiry into the use of stun belts, stunguns and shields
    , and all other types and variants of electro-shock weapons in Member
    States, to assess their medical and other effects in terms of
    international human rights standards regulating the treatment of
    prisoners and the use of force; the inquiry should examine all known
    cases of deaths or injury resulting from the use of these instruments,
    and the results of the inquiry should be published without delay

    (iv) That the European Commission be asked to:-

    (a). Ensure that the UN Minimum treatment of prisoners rules banning
        the use of leg irons on prisoners are implemented in all EU
        correctional facilities.
        (b). Implement a ban on the introduction of in-built gassing
        systems inside European gaols on the basis of the manufacturers
        warnings of the dangers of using chemical riot control agents in
        enclosed spaces. Restrictions should also be made on the use of
        chemical irritants from whatever source in correctional facilities
        wherever research has shown that a concentration of that irritant
        could either kill or be associated with permanent damage to
        health.
        (c). Explore legal mechanisms to ensure that all private prison
        operations within the European Union should be subject to a common
        and consistent licensing regime by the host member. If adopted, no
        licence should be granted where proven human rights violations by
        that contractor have been made elsewhere. Consideration might be
        given to providing a contract mechanism whereby any failure to
        secure a licence in one European state should debar that private
        prison contractor from bidding for other European contracts
        (pending evidence of adequate human rights training and
        appropriate improvements in standard operating procedures and
        controls by that corporation or company).

    (v). Seek agreement between all Member States to ensure that:

    (a) All riot control, prisoner transport and extraction technology
        which is in use or proposed for use in all prisons, (whether state
        or privately run), should be subject to prior approval by the
        competent member authorities on the basis of independent research;

    (b) Automated systems of indiscriminate punishment such as built in
        baton round firing mechanisms, should be prohibited.
        (c). The use of electro-shock restraining devices or other remote
        control punishment devices including shock- shields should be
        immediately suspended in any private or public prison in the
        European Union, until and unless independent medical evidence can
        clearly demonstrate that their use will not contribute to deaths
        in custody, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
        or punishment.

    6. INTERROGATION, TORTURE TECHNIQUES & TECHNOLOGIES

    The Interim Report on the variety of hardware, software and liveware
    involved in human interrogation and torture.
    Millennia of research and development have been expended in devising
    ever more cruel and inhumane means of extracting obedience and
    information from reluctant victims or achieving excruciatingly painful
    and long-drawn-out deaths for those who would question or challenge
    the prevalent status quo. What has changed in more recent times is (i)
    the increasing requirement for speed in breaking down prisoners'
    resistance; (ii) the adoption of sophisticated methods based on a
    scientific approach and (iii) a need for invisible torture which
    leaves no or few marks which might be used by organisations like
    Amnesty International to label a particular government, a torturing
    state. Today, the phenomena of torture has grown to a worldwide
    epidemic. A report by the Redress Trust, 1996, found that 151
    countries were involved in torture, inhuman or degrading treatment,
    despite the fact that 106 states have ratified, acceded to or signed
    the Convention Against Torture.

    Helen Bamber, Director of the British Medical Foundation for the
    Treatment of the Victims of Torture, has described electroshock batons
    at 'the most universal modern tool of the torturers' (Gregory,1995)
    Recent surveys of torture victims have confirmed that after systematic
    beating, electroshock is one of the most common factors (London,
    1993); Rasmussen, 1990). If one looks at the country reports of
    Amnesty International, (which recently published a survey of fifty
    countries where electric shock torture and ill treatment has been
    recorded since 1990), confirm that electroshock torture is the
    Esperanto of the most repressive states. Since publication of the
    Interim Report, one news story has uncovered evidence suggesting that
    Taiwan made electroshock weapons are being sold with the EC "mark of
    quality", despite the resolution passed by the European Parliament
    seeking a ban on such devices. There is an urgent need to establish
    whether this is a bogus claim or whether there really are people in
    the Commission building whose job is to make sure the electro-shock
    weapons produced by foreign manufacturers can produce the requisite
    level of paralysis & helplessness beloved of torturers every where.
    Members of the European Parliament may wish to consider the following
    policy options:-

    6.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    (i). That the Civil Liberties Committee should receive expert evidence
    to determine whether:-

    (a) New regulations on the nature of in-depth interrogation training
        should be agreed which prohibit export of such techniques to
        forces overseas known to be involved in gross human rights
        violation.
        (b) All training of foreign military, police, security and
        intelligence forces in interrogation techniques, can be subject to
        licence, even if it is provided outside European territory.
        (c) Restrictions on visits to European MSP related events by
        representatives of known torturing states can be effectively
        implemented.

    (ii) The Commission should be requested to achieve agreement between
    member States to:

    (a) Carry out an investigation of claims that the EC "mark of quality"
        is being used to endorse electroshock devices and Immediately
        prohibit the transfer of all electroshock stun weapons to any
        country where such weapons are likely to contribute to unlawful
        killings, or to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,
        for example by refusing any export licence where it is proposed
        that electroshock weapons will be transferred to a country where
        persistent torture or instances of instances of electric shock
        torture and ill treatment have been reported;
        (b) Introduce and implement new regulations on the manufacture,
        sale and transfer of all electroshock weapons from and into
        Europe, with a full report to the European Parliament's Civil
        Liberties committee made each year. [Special consideration should
        be given to controlling the whole procurement process, covering
        even the making of contracts of sale, (to prevent a purchase deal
        made in a European country being met by a supplier or subsidiary
        outside of the EU, in an effort to obviate extant controls)].
        (c). Ensure that the proposed regulations should cover patents and
        prohibit the patenting of any device whose sole use would be the
        violation of human rights, via torture or the creation of
        unnecessary suffering. The onus should be on the patent seeker to
        show that his patent would not lead to such outcomes.

    (v) The European Parliament should look at commissioning new work to
    investigate how existing legislation within member states of the EU,
    can be brought to bear to prosecute companies who have been complicit
    in the supply of equipment used for torture as defined by the UN
    convention of torture. This new work should examine, in conjunction
    with the Directorate of Human Rights:-

    (a) The extent to which such technology produced by European companies
        is being transferred to human rights violators and the role played
        by international military, police and security fairs organised
        both inside and outside European Borders;
        (b)The possible measures that could be set in place to monitor and
        track any technology transfer within this category and any
        potential role in this endeavour that might be played by
        recognised Non-Governmental Organisations.

    7. DEVELOPMENTS IN SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY

    Surveillance technology can be defined as devices or systems which can
    monitor, track and assess the movements of individuals, their property
    and other assets. Much of this technology is used to track the
    activities of dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, student
    leaders, minorities, trade union leaders and political opponents. A
    huge range of surveillance technologies has evolved, including the
    night vision goggles; parabolic microphones to detect conversations
    over a kilometre away; laser versions, can pick up any conversation
    from a closed window in line of sight; the Danish Jai stroboscopic
    camera can take hundreds of pictures in a matter of seconds and
    individually photograph all the participants in a demonstration or
    March; and the automatic vehicle recognition systems can tracks cars
    around a city via a Geographic Information System of maps.

    New technologies which were originally conceived for the Defence and
    Intelligence sectors, have after the cold war, rapidly spread into the
    law enforcement and private sectors. It is one of the areas of
    technological advance, where outdated regulations have not kept pace
    with an accelerating pattern of abuses. Up until the 1960's, most
    surveillance was low-tech and expensive since it involved following
    suspects around from place to place, using up to 6 people in teams of
    two working 3 eight hour shifts. All of the material and contacts
    gleaned had to be typed up and filed away with little prospect of
    rapidly cross checking. Even electronic surveillance was highly labour
    intensive. The East German police for example employed 500,000 secret
    informers, 10,000 of which were needed just to listen and transcribe
    citizen's phone calls.

    By the 1980's, new forms of electronic surveillance were emerging and
    many of these were directed towards automation of communications
    interception. This trend was fuelled in the U.S. in the 1990's by
    accelerated government funding at the end of the cold war, with
    defence and intelligence agencies being refocussed with new missions
    to justify their budgets, transferring their technologies to certain
    law enforcement applications such as anti-drug and anti-terror
    operations. In 1993, the US department of defence and the Justice
    department signed memoranda of understanding for "Operations Other
    Than War and Law Enforcement" to facilitate joint development and
    sharing of technology. According to David Banisar of Privacy
    International, "To counteract reductions in military contracts which
    began in the 1980's, computer and electronics companies are expanding
    into new markets - at home and abroad - with equipment originally
    developed for the military. Companies such as E Systems, Electronic
    Data Systems and Texas Instruments are selling advanced computer
    systems and surveillance equipment to state and local governments that
    use them for law enforcement, border control and Welfare
    administration."What the East German secret police could only dream of
    is rapidly becoming a reality in the free world."

    7.1 Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Surveillance Networks

    In fact the art of visual surveillance has dramatically changed over
    recent years. Of course police and intelligence officers still
    photograph demonstrations and individuals of interest but increasingly
    such images can be stored and searched. Ongoing processes of
    ultra-miniaturisation mean that such devices can be made to be
    virtually undetectable and are open to abuse by both indivduals,
    companies and official agencies.

    The attitude to CCTV camera networks varies greatly in the European
    Union, from the position in Denmark where such cameras are banned by
    law to the position in the UK, where many hundreds of CCTV networks
    exist. Nevertheless, a common position on the status of such systems
    where they exist in relation to data protection principles should
    apply in general. A specific consideration is the legal status of
    admissibility as evidence, of digital material such as those taken by
    the more advanced CCTV systems. Much of this will fall within data
    protection legislation if the material gathered can be searched eg by
    car number plate or by time. Given that material from such systems can
    be seemlessly edited, the European Data Protection Directive
    legislation needs to be implemented through primary legislation which
    clarifies the law as it applies to CCTV, to avoid confusion amongst
    both CCTV data controllers as well as citizens as data subjects.
    Primary legislation will make it possible to extend the impact of the
    Directive to areas of activity that do not fall within community law.
    Articles 3 and 13 of the Directive should not create a blanket
    covering the use of CCTV in every circumstance in a domestic context.

    A proper code of practice such as that promoted by the UK based Local
    Government Information Unit (LGIU, 1996) should be extended to absorb
    best practice from all EU Member States to cover the use of all CCTV
    surveillance schemes operating in public spaces and especially in
    residential areas.
    As a first step it is suggested that the Civil Liberties Committee
    formally consider examining the practice and control of CCTV
    throughout the member States with a view to establishing what elements
    of the various codes of practice could be adopted for a unified code
    and an enforceable legal framework covering enforcement and civil
    liberties protection and redress.

    7.2 Algorithmic Surveilance Sysytems

    The revolution in urban surveillance will reach the next generation of
    control once reliable face recognition comes in. It will initially be
    introduced at stationary locations, like turnstiles, customs points,
    security gateways etc. to enable a standard full face recognition to
    take place. The Interim Report predicted that in the early part of the
    21st. century, facial recognition on CCTV will be a reality and those
    countries with CCTV infrastructures will view such technology as a
    natural add-on. In fact, an American company Software and Systems has
    trialed a system in London which can scan crowds and match faces
    against a database of images held in a remote computer.
    We are at the beginning of a revolution in 'algorithmic surveillance'
    - effectively data analysis via complex algoritms which enable
    automatic recognition and tracking. Such automation not only widens
    the surveillance net, it narrows the mesh.(See Norris, C., et. al,
    1998)

    Similarly Vehicle Recognition Systems have been developed which can
    identify a car number plate then track the car around a city using a
    computerised geographic information system. Such systems are now
    commercially available, for example, the Talon system introduced in
    1994 by UK company Racal at a price of £2000 per unit. The system is
    trained to recognise number plates based on neural network technology
    developed by Cambridge Neurodynamics, and can see both night and day.
    Initially it has been used for traffic monitoring but its function has
    been adapted in recent years to cover security surveillance and has
    been incorporated in the "ring of steel" around London. The system can
    then record all the vehicles that entered or left the cordon on a
    particular day.

    It is important to set clear guidelines and codes of practice for such
    technological innovations, well in advance of the digital revolution
    making new and unforseen opportunities to collate, analyze, recognise
    and store such visual images. Already multifunctional traffic
    management systems such as 'Traffic Master' , (which uses vehicle
    recognition systems to map and quantify congestion), are facilitating
    a national surveillance architecture. Such regulation will need to be
    founded on sound data protection principles and take cognizance of
    article 15 of the 1995 European Directive on the protection of
    Individuals and Processing of Personal Data. Essentially this says
    that : "Member States shall grant the right of every person not to be
    subject to a decision which produces legal effects concerning him or
    significantly affects him and which is based solely on the automatic
    processing of data." There is much to recommend the European
    Parliament following the advice of a recent UK House of Lords Report
    (Select Committee Report on Digital Images as Evidence, 1998). Namely:
    (i)that the European Parliament ...."produces guidance for both the
    public and private sectors on the use of data matching, and in
    particular the linking of surveillance systems with other databases;
    and (ii) That the Data Protection Registrar be given powers to audit
    the operation of data matching systems"

    Such surveillance systems raise significant issues of accountability,
    particularly when transferred to authoritarian regimes. The cameras
    used in Tiananmen Square were sold as advanced traffic control systems
    by Siemens Plessey. Yet after the 1989 massacre of students, there
    followed a witch hunt when the authorities tortured and interrogated
    thousands in an effort to ferret out the subversives. The Scoot
    surveillance system with USA made Pelco cameras were used to
    faithfully record the protests. The images were repeatedly broadcast
    over Chinese television offering a reward for information, with the
    result that nearly all the transgressors were identified. Again
    democratic accountability is only the criterion which distinguishes a
    modern traffic control system from an advanced dissident capture
    technology. Foreign companies are exporting traffic control systems to
    Lhasa in Tibet, yet Lhasa does not as yet have any traffic control
    problems. The problem here may be a culpable lack of imagination.

    7.3 Bugging & Tapping Devices

    A wide range of bugging and tapping devices have been evolved to
    record conversations and to intercept telecommunications traffic. In
    recent years the widespread practice of illegal and legal interception
    of communications and the planting of 'bugs' has been an issue in many
    European States.
    However, planting illegal bugs is yesterday's technology. Modern
    snoopers can buy specially adapted lap top computers, and simply tune
    in to all the mobile phones active in the area by cursoring down to
    their number. The machine will even search for numbers 'of interest'
    to see if they are active. However, these bugs and taps pale into
    insignificance next to the national and international state run
    interceptions networks.

    7.4 National & International Communications Interceptions Networks

    The Interim Report set out in detail, the global surveillance systems
    which facilitate the mass supervision of all telecommunications
    including telephone, email and fax transmissions of private citizens,
    politicians, trade unionists and companies alike. There has been a
    political shift in targeting in recent years. Instead of investigating
    crime (which is reactive) law enforcement agencies are increasingly
    tracking certain social classes and races of people living in
    red-lined areas before crime is committed - a form of pre-emptive
    policing deemed data-veillance which is based on military models of
    gathering huge quantities of low grade intelligence.

    Without encryption, modern communications systems are virtually
    transparent to the advanced interceptions equipment which can be used
    to listen in. The Interim Report also explained how mobile phones have
    inbuilt monitoring and tagging dimensions which can be accessed by
    police and intelligence agencies. For example the digital technology
    required to pinpoint mobile phone users for incoming calls, means that
    all mobile phone users in a country when activated, are mini-tracking
    devices, giving their owners whereabouts at any time and stored in the
    company's computer . For example Swiss Police have secretly tracked
    the whereabouts of mobile phone users from the computer of the service
    provider Swisscom, which according SonntagsZeitung had stored
    movements of more than a milion subscribers down to a few hundred
    metres, and going back at least half a year.

    However, of all the developments covered in the Interim Report, the
    section covering some of the constitutional and legal issues raised by
    the USA's National Security Agency's access and facility to intercept
    all European telecommunications caused the most concern. Whilst no-one
    denied the role of such networks in anti terrorist operations and
    countering illegal drug, money laudering and illicit arms deals, alarm
    was expressed about the scale of the foreign interceptions network
    identified in the report and whether existing legislation, data
    protection and privacy safeguards in the Member States were sufficient
    to protect the confidentiality between EU citizens, corporations and
    those with third countries.

    Since there has been a certain degree of confusion in subsequent press
    reports, it is worth clarifying some of the issues surrounding
    transatlantic electronic surveillance and providing a short history &
    update on developments since the Interim Report was published in
    January 1998. There are essentially two separate system, namely:

    (i) The UK/USA system comprising the activities of military
        intelligence agencies such as NSA-CIA in the USA subsuming GCHQ &
        MI6 in the UK operating a system known as ECHELON;
        (ii) The EU-FBI system which is linkeding up various law
        enforcement agencies such as the FBI, police, customs, immigration
        and internal security;

    Although the confusion has been further compounded by the title of
    item 44 on the agenda for the Plenary session of the European
    Parliament on September 16, 1998, in intelligence terms, these are two
    distinct "communities" It is worth looking briefly at the activities
    of both systems in turn, encompassing, Echelon, encryption; EU-FBI
    surveillance and new interfaces with for example to access to internet
    providers and to databanks of other agencies.

    7.4.1 NSA INTERCEPTION OF ALL EU TELECOMMUNICATIONS

    The Interim report said that within Europe, all email, telephone and
    fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States
    National Security Agency, transferring all target information from the
    European mainland via the strategic hub of London then by Satellite to
    Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the
    North York Moors of the UK.

    The system was first uncovered in the 1970's by a group of researchers
    in the UK (Campbell, 1981). A recent work by Nicky Hager, Secret
    Power, (Hager,1996) provides the most comprehensive details todate of
    a project known as ECHELON. Hager interviewed more than 50 people
    concerned with intelligence to document a global surveillance system
    that stretches around the world to form a targeting system on all of
    the key Intelsat satellites used to convey most of the world's
    satellite phone calls, internet, email, faxes and telexes. These sites
    are based at Sugar Grove and Yakima, in the USA, at Waihopai in New
    Zealand, at Geraldton in Australia, Hong Kong, and Morwenstow in the
    UK.

    The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of
    the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON is
    designed for primarily non-military targets: governments,
    organisations and businesses in virtually every country. The ECHELON
    system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of
    communications and then siphoning out what is valuable using
    artificial intelligence aids like Memex. to find key words. Five
    nations share the results with the US as the senior partner under the
    UKUSA agreement of 1948, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia
    are very much acting as subordinate information servicers.

    Each of the five centres supply "dictionaries" to the other four of
    keywords, Phrases, people and places to "tag" and the tagged intercept
    is forwarded straight to the requesting country. Whilst there is much
    information gathered about potential terrorists, there is a lot of
    economic intelligence, notably intensive monitoring of all the
    countries participating in the GATT negotiations. But Hager found that
    by far the main priorities of this system continued to be military and
    political intelligence applicable to their wider interests.

    Hager quotes from a"highly placed intelligence operatives" who spoke
    to the Observer in London. "We feel we can no longer remain silent
    regarding that which we regard to be gross malpractice and negligence
    within the establishment in which we operate." They gave as examples.
    GCHQ interception of three charities, including Amnesty International
    and Christian Aid. "At any time GCHQ is able to home in on their
    communications for a routine target request," the GCHQ source said. In
    the case of phone taps the procedure is known as Mantis. With telexes
    its called Mayfly. By keying in a code relating to third world aid,
    the source was able to demonstrate telex "fixes" on the three
    organisations. With no system of accountability, it is difficult to
    discover what criteria determine who is not a target.

    Indeed since the Interim Report was published, journalists have
    alleged that ECHELON has benefited US companies involved in arms
    deals, strengthened Washington's position in crucial World Trade
    organisation talks with Europe during a 1995 dispute with Japan over
    car part exports. According to the Financial Mail On Sunday, "key
    words identified by US experts include the names of inter-governmental
    trade organisations and business consortia bidding against US
    companies. The word 'block' is on the list to identify communications
    about offshore oil in area where the seabed has yet to be divided up
    into exploration blocks"..."It has also been suggested that in 1990
    the US broke into secret negotiations and persuaded Indonesia that US
    giant AT & T be included in a multi-billion dollar telecoms deal that
    at one point was going entirely to Japan's NEC.

    The Sunday Times (11 May, 1998) reported that early on the radomes at
    Menwith Hill (NSA station F83) In North Yorkshire UK, were given the
    task of intercepting international leased carrrier (ILC) traffic -
    essentially, ordinary commercial communications. Its staff have grown
    from 400 in the 1980's to more than 1400 now with a further 370 staff
    from the MoD. The Sunday Times also reported allegations that
    converstaions between the German company Volkswagen and General Motors
    were intercepted and the French have complained that Thompson-CSF, the
    French electronics company, lost a $1.4 billion deal to supply Brazil
    with a radar system because the Americans intercepted details of the
    negotions and passed them on to US company Raytheon, which
    subsequently won the contract. Another claim is that Airbus Industrie
    lost a contract worth $1 billion to Boeing and McDonnel Douglas
    because information was intercepted by American spying. Other
    newspapers such as Liberation 21 April 1998) and Il Mondo (20 March
    1998, identify the network as an Anglo-Saxon Spy network because of
    the UK-USA axis. Privacy International goes further. "Whilst
    recognising that 'strictly speaking, neither the Commission nor the
    European Parliament have a mandate to regulate or intervene in
    security matters...they do have a responsibility to ensure that
    security is harmonised throughout the Union."

    According to Privacy International, the UK is likely to find its
    'Special relationship' ties fall foul of its Maastricht obligations
    since Title V of Maastricht requires that "Member States shall inform
    and consult one another within the Council on any matter of foreign
    and security policy of general interest in order to ensure that their
    combined influence is exerted as effectivelly as possible by means of
    concerted and convergent action." Yet under the terms of the Special
    relationship, Britain cannot engage in open consultatuion with its
    other European partners. The situation is further complicated by
    counter allegations in the French magazine Le Point, that the French
    are systematically spying on American and other allied countries
    telephone and cable traffic via the Helios 1A Spy sattelite. (Times,
    June 17 1998)

    If even half of these allegations are true then the European
    Parliament must act to ensure that such powerful surveillance systems
    operate to a more democratic consensus now that the Cold War has
    ended. Clearly, the Overseas policies of European Union Member States
    are not always congruent with those of the USA and in commercial
    terms, espionage is espionage. No proper Authority in the USA would
    allow a similar EU spy network to operate from American soil without
    strict limitations, if at all. Following full discussion on the
    implications of the operations of these networks, the European
    Parliament is asvised to set up appropriate independent audit and
    oversight porocedures and that any effort to outlaw encryption by EU
    citizens should be denied until and unless such democratic and
    accountable systems are in place, if at all.

    7.4.2 EU-FBI GLOBAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM

    Much of the documentation and research necessary to put into the
    public domain, the history, structure, role and function of the EU-FBI
    convention to legitimise global electronic surveillance, has been
    secured by Statewatch, the widely respected UK based civil liberties
    monitoring and research organisation.

    Statewatch have described at length the signing of the Transatlantic
    Agenda in Madrid at the EU-US summit of 3 December 1995 - Part of
    which was the "Joint EU-US Action Plan" and has subsequently analysed
    these efforts as an ongoing attempt to redefine the Atlantic Alliance
    in the post-Cold War era, a stance increasingly used to justify the
    efforts of internal security agencies taking on enhanced policing
    roles in Europe. Statewatch notes that the first Joint Action 'out of
    the area" surveillance plan was not discussed at the Justice and Home
    Affairs meeting but adopted on the nod, as an A point (without debate)
    by of all places, the Fisheries Council on 20 December 1996.

    In February 1997, Statewatch reported that the EU had secretly agreed
    to set up an international telephone tapping network via a secret
    network of committees established under the "third pillar" of the
    Mastricht Treaty covering co-operation on law and order. Key points of
    the plan are outlined in a memorandum of understanding, signed by EU
    states in 1995.(ENFOPOL 112 10037/95 25.10.95) which remains
    classified. According to a Guardian report (25.2.97) it reflects
    concern among European Intelligence agencies that modern technology
    will prevent them from tapping private communications. "EU countries
    it says, should agree on "international interception standards set at
    a level that would ensure encoding or scrambled words can be broken
    down by government agencies." Official reports say that the EU
    governments agreed to co-operate closely with the FBI in Washington.
    Yet earlier minutes of these meetings suggest that the original
    initiative came from Washington. According to Statewatch, network and
    service providers in the EU will be obliged to install "tappable"
    systems and to place under surveillance any person or group when
    served with an interception order.

    These plans have never been referred to any European government for
    scrutiny, nor to the Civil Liberties Committee of the European
    Parliament, despite the clear civil liberties issues raised by such an
    unaccountable system. The decision to go ahead was simply agreed in
    secret by "written procedure" through an exchane of telexes between
    the 15 EU governments. We are told by Statewatch the EU-FBI Global
    surveillance plan was now being developed "outside the third pillar."
    In practical terms this means that the plan is being developed by a
    group of twenty countries - the then 15 EU member countries plus the
    USA, Australia, Canada, Norway and New Zealand. This group of 20 is
    not accountable through the Council of Justice and Home Affairs
    Ministers or to the European Parliament or national parliaments.
    Nothing is said about finance of this system but a report produced by
    the German government estimates that the mobile phone part of the
    package alone will cost 4 billion D-marks.

    Statewatch concludes that "It is the interface of the ECHELON system
    and its potential development on phone calls combined with the
    standardisation of "tappable communications centres and equipment
    being sponsored by the EU and the USA which presents a truly global
    threat over which there are no legal or democratic controls."(Press
    release 25.2.97) In many respects what we are witnessing here are
    meetings of operatives of a new global military-intelligence state. It
    is very difficult for anyone to get a full picture of what is being
    decided at the executive meetings setting this 'Transatlantic agenda.
    Whilst Statewatch won a ruling from the Ombudsman for access on the
    grounds that the Council of Ministers 'misapplied the code of access,
    for the time being such access to the agendas have been denied.
    Without such access, we are left with 'black box decision making'. The
    eloquence of the unprecedented Commission statement on Echelon and
    Transatlantic relations scheduled for the 16th. of September, is
    likely to be as much about what is left out as it is about what is
    said for public consumption. Members of the European Parliament may
    wish to consider the following policy options:-

    7.5 POLICY OPTIONS

    (i) That a more detailed series of studies should be commissioned on
    the social, political commercial and constitutional implications of
    the global electronic surveillance networks outlined in this report,
    with a view to holding a series of expert hearings to inform future EU
    civil liberties policy. These studies might cover:-

    (a) The consitutional issues raised by the facility of the US National
    Security Agency (NSA) to intercept all European telecommunications,
    particularly those legal commitments made by member States in regard
    to the Maastricht Treaty and the whole question of the use of this
    network for automated political and commercial espionage.

    (b) The social and political implications of the FBI-EU global
    surveillance system, its growing access to new telecommunications
    mediums including e-mail and its ongoing expansion into new countries
    together with any related financial and constitutional issues;

    (c) The structure, role and remit of an EU wide oversight body,
    independent from the European Parliament, which might be set up to
    oversee and audit the activities of all bodies engaged in intercepting
    telecommunications made within Europe;

    (ii) The European Parliament should reject proposals from the United
    States for making private messages via the global communications
    network (Internet) accessible to US Intelligence Agencies. Nor should
    the Parliament agree to new expensive encryption controls without a
    wide ranging debate within the EU on the implications of such
    measures. These encompass the civil and human rights of European
    citizens and the commercial rights of companies to operate within the
    law, without unwarranted surveillance by intelligence agencies
    operating in conjunction with multinational competitors.

    (ii) That the European Parliament convene a series of expert hearings
    covering all the technical, political and commercial activities of
    bodies engaged in electronic surveillance and to further elaborate
    possible options to bring such activities back within the realm of
    democratic accountability and transparency. These proposed hearings
    might also examine the issue of proper codes of practice to ensure
    redress if malpractice or abuse takes place. Explicit criteria should
    be agreed for deciding who should be targeted for surveillance and who
    should not, how such data is stored, processed and shared and whether
    such criteria and associated codes of practice could be made publicly
    available.

    (iii) To amend the terms of reference of the Civil Liberties and
    Internal Affairs Committee to include powers and responsibilities for
    all matters relating to the civil liberties issues raised by
    electronic surveillance devices and networks and to call for a series
    of reports during its next work programme, including:-

    (a) How legally binding codes of practice could ensure that new
    surveillance technologies are brought within the appropriate data
    protection legislation?;

    (b) The production of guidance for both the public and private sectors
    on the use of data matching, and in particular the linking of
    surveillance systems with other databases; and addressing the issue of
    giving Member State Data Protection Registrars appropriate powers to
    audit the operation of data matching systems"

    (c) How the provision of electronic bugging and tapping devices to
    private citizens and companies, might be further regulated, so that
    their sale is governed by legal permission rather than self
    regulation?

    (d) How the use of telephone interception by Member states could be
    subject to procedures of public accountability referred to in (a)
    above? (E.g. before any telephone interception takes place a warrant
    should be obtained in a manner prescribed by the relevant parliament.
    In most cases, law enforcement agencies will not be permitted to
    self-authorise interception except in the most unusual of
    circumstances which should be reported back to the authorising
    authority at the earliest opportunity.

    (e) How technologies facilitating the automatic profiling and pattern
    analysis of telephone calls to establish friendship and contact
    networks might be subject to the same legal requirements as those for
    telephone interception and reported to the relevant Member State
    parliament?;.

    (f) The commission of a study examining what constitutes best practice
    and control of CCTV throughout the member States with a view to
    establishing what elements of the various codes of practice could be
    adopted for a unified code and a legal framework covering enforcement
    and civil liberties protection and redress.

    (iv) Setting up procedural mechanisms whereby relevant committees of
    the European Parliament considering proposals for technologies which
    have civil liberties implications (e.g. the Telecommunications
    Committee) in regard to surveillance, should be required to forward
    all relevant policy proposals and reports to the Civil Liberties
    Committee for their observations in advance of any political or
    financial decisions on deployment being taken.

    (v) Setting up Agreements betwen Member States Agreement whereby
    annual statistics on interception should be reported to each member
    states' parliament in a standard and consistent format. These
    statistics should provide comprehensive details of the actual number
    of communication devices intercepted and data should be not be
    aggregated. (To avoid the statistics only identifying the number of
    warrants, issued whereas organisations under surveillance may have
    hundreds of members, all of whose phones may be intercepted).

    8. REGULATION OF HORIZONTAL PROLIFERATION

    The Interim Report warned of the potential of some of these weapons,
    technologies and systems to undermine international human rights
    legislation - a consideration particularly poignant in this the 50th.
    anniversary year of the signing of the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
    Many of the major arms companies have a paramilitary/internal security
    operation and diversification into manufacturing or marketing this
    technology, is increasingly taking place.

    NGO's like Amnesty International, have begun to catalogue the trade in
    specialised military, security and police technologies, to measure its
    impact on industrialising repression, globalising conflict,
    undermining democracy and strengthening the security forces of
    torturing states to create a new generation of political prisoners,
    extra-judicial killings and 'disappearances'. (Amnesty International,
    1996). The key issue for Members of the European Parliament is how
    they will deal with the human and political fall out of what is a
    systemic process of exporting repression: either importing a tidal
    wave of dispossessed refugees, or keeping them in desperation at the
    borders of Europe. There is an urgent need for greater transparency
    and democratic control of such exports and a clearer recognition of
    their frequent linkage with gross human rights violations in their
    recipient states.

    The Interim Report catalogued in some detail , examples of how this
    technology, including electroshock systems, was being supplied by
    European countries to assist in acts of human rights violation
    abroad,despite the fact that a substantial body of international human
    rights obligations should theoretically prevent such transfers .
    The European Parliament made a resolution on the 19 January 1995,
    which called on the Commission to bring forward proposals to
    incorporate these technologies within the scope of the arms export
    controls and ensure greater transparency in the export of all
    military, security and police technologies to prevent the hypocrisy of
    governments who themselves breach their own export bans. Members of
    the European Parliament may wish to consider the following policy
    options:-

    8.1 POLICY OPTIONS

    (i) That new research should be commissioned by the European
    Parliament to explore the extent to which European companies are
    complicity supplying repressive technologies used to commit human
    rights violations and the prospects of instituting independent
    measures of monitoring the level and extent of such sales whilst
    tracking their subsequent human rights impacts and consequences;

    (ii) Consider if there is a need to amend the terms of reference of
    the Committee for Foreign Affairs and Security to include powers and
    responsibilities for liaising with Member States to:-

    (a) Enable the European Parliament to explore the possibilities of
    using the Joint Action procedures used to establish the EU regulations
    on the export of Dual Use equipment to draw up common lists of
    proscribed military, security, police (MSP)technology and training,
    the sole or primary use of which is to contribute to human rights
    violations; sensitive MSP technologies which have been shown in the
    past to be used to commit human rights violations; and military,
    security and police units and forces which have been sufficiently
    responsible for human rights violations and to whom sensitive goods
    and services should not be supplied;

    (b) Enable Member States to monitor and regulate all exhibitions
    promoting the sale of security equipment and technology to ensure that
    any proposed transfers such as electroshock weapons, will not
    contribute to unlawful killings, or to torture or cruel, inhuman or
    degrading treatment or punishment;

    (b) Explore mechanisms to ensure that all military, police and
    security exhibitions are required to publish guest lists, names of
    exhibitors, products and services on display and no visas or
    invitations should be issued to governments or representatives of
    security forces, known to carry out human rights violations.

    (c) Find more effective means for ensuring that the sender should take
    legal responsibility for the stated use of military, security and
    police transfers in practice, for example making future contracts
    dependent on adherence to human rights criteria and that such criteria
    are central to the regulatory process.

    (iii) That the Commission should be requested to achieve agreement
    between Member States to undertake changes to their respective
    strategic export controls so that:-

    (a) All proposed transfers of security or police equipment are
    publicly disclosed in advance, especially electroshock weapons,
    (including those arranged on European territory where the equipment
    concerned remains outside Member States' borders) so that the human
    rights situation in the intended receiving country can be taken into
    consideration before any such transfers are allowed. and that reports
    are issued on the human rights situation in the receiving countries;

    (b) Member States Parliaments are notified of all information
    necessary to enable them to exercise proper control over the
    implementation of their legal obligations and commitments to
    international human rights agreements, including receiving information
    on human rights violations from non-governmental organisations;

    9. CONCLUSIONS

    With proper accountability and regulation, some of the technologies
    discussed above do have a legitimate law enforcement function; without
    such democratic control, they can provide powerful tools of
    oppression.The real threat to civil liberties and human rights in the
    future, is more likely to arise from an incremental erosion of civil
    liberties, than it is from some conscious plan. As the globalisation
    of political control technologies increases, Members of the European
    Parliament have a right and a responsibility to challenge the costs,
    as well as the alleged benefits of many so-called advances in law
    enforcement. This report has sought to highlight some of the areas
    which are leading to the most undesirable social and political
    consequences.

    Members of the Parliament are requested to consider the policy options
    provided in the report as just a first step to help bring the
    technology of political control, back within systems of democratic
    accountability.











    ANNEX 1

            AN APPRAISAL OF THE TECHNOLOGIES OF POLITICAL CONTROL

                 AN OMEGA FOUNDATION SUMMARY & OPTIONS REPORT

                                 BIBLIOGRAPHY


    * Note that this bibliography represents an abbreviated list. Those
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    referred to the detailed bibliography provided provided in the Interim
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