From http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,326400,00.html }}>Begin Government tapping of phone calls between UK and Ireland challenged Northern Ireland: special report Richard Norton-Taylor Wednesday May 31, 2000 The government is being taken to the European human rights court over allegations that the security and intelligence agencies have been engaged in the wholesale tapping of telephone conversations between Britain and Ireland. It has refused to deny claims, first made last year, that it tapped the phones from a tower at Capenhurst in Cheshire. The tower - described by the Ministry of Defence as an "electronic test facility" - intercepted phone calls carried by radio microwave between British Telecom relay stations at Gwaenysgor, Clywd, and Pale Heights, near Chester. The stations carried Ireland's telecommunications links through Britain. The government has never denied claims about the purpose of the Capenhurst tower which were first made by Channel 4 News in July last year. Lawyers representing the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty, its British counterpart, and British Irish Rights Watch, claim the interceptions breached article 8 of the European human rights convention guaranteeing the right to privacy. The Capenhurst tower, they said, had the capacity to intercept 10,000 simultaneous phone channels from Dublin to London and elsewhere. Tapped conversations included legally privileged material such as discussions between human rights groups and individuals who sought their assistance, they said. They pointed to a section of the 1985 Interception of Communications Act which allows the security and intelligence agencies to seek warrants enabling them to tap conversations without referring to a specific target or address. The act allows the home secretary to issue a warrant covering any information the agencies say they need to carry out their functions - so-called "certified" material - from "external communications". However, they can only gather this material by intercepting other conversations and information passing through the communications link. "The procedure ... by its nature requires all material, regardless of whether it falls within the scope of the purposes defined in the warrants or not, to be intercepted," Richard Clayton, counsel for the human rights groups, said in their submission to the European court. He added: "The material is then examined after the event in order to discover whether it falls within the scope of the warrant." He said the 1985 act effectively allows interception for "any purpose". The Capenhurst tower is redundant and up for sale and Ireland has a new fibre optic telecommunications system. Early this year, David Andrews, the former Irish foreign minister, said he accepted assurances from Robin Cook that Britain was not involved in indiscriminate or blanket tapping of Irish communications. Minutes of an Irish security committee, released under the country's freedom of information act, concluded there was "no firm evidence available to the Irish authorities that commercial telecommunications traffic originating in or destined for this country has been intercepted in a systematic or extra-legal way". However, members of the committee argued that interception technology in possession of many countries, including Britain, suggests that illegal bugging is going on. The human rights groupsbringing the test case argue that indiscriminate bugging is being allowed by existing English law in contravention of the human rights convention. John Wadham, director of Liberty, said yesterday that the loophole in the 1985 act will remain in the new regulation of investigatory powers bill which gives the security and intelligence agencies sweeping new bugging powers. End<{{ From http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,320021,00.html }}>Begin UK agrees to Euro-bugging Civil liberties watchdog voices unease as Straw signs anti-crime pact to allow EU-wide phone tapping Refugees in Britain: special report Ian Black in Brussels Tuesday May 30, 2000 Britain signed up to greater cooperation with its EU partners yesterday, with agreements to share criminal intelligence and to allow UK immigration officials to operate in France. EU ministers signed the mutual legal assistance convention, which allows for cooperation on criminal investigations. It gives German police, for example, the right to tap the telephone of a suspect living in Britain, or vice versa. Jack Straw, the home secretary, and Jean-Pierre Chev�nement, his French counterpart, finalised details of a treaty permitting British immigration officers to check passengers before they board the Eurostar at Paris's Gare du Nord and other stations in France. With controversy over illegal immigrants and asylum seekers in recent months, the cross-Channel rail link has become a popular route for refugees, especially Albanians and Somalians, seeking a new life in Britain. Under the agreement, signed in Brussels, French officials will be able to operate reciprocally at Waterloo and Ashford. British immigration officers already operate on Eurostar trains from Belgium. On a wider issue, EU interior ministers approved Britain's request to join the Schengen information system, a Strasbourg-based database with over 14m records on fugitives, stolen vehicles and firearms. But Britain is staying outside the wider Schengen agreement, which loosened border controls between several EU states. Other EU states had been unhappy with this � la carte approach, but reluctantly concluded that it was better to have Britain only partly in than completely outside - a solution which cannot be replicated over the bigger issue of the euro. The British government says the EU anti-crime convention is intended to cope with the growth of cross-border crime and make it easier to obtain evidence abroad for use in British courts. But there are worries that what began as judicial cooperation has ended with tighter operational coordination between unaccountable and self-regulating police and security forces. "It's a massive extension of powers," warned Tony Bunyan of Statewatch, the civil liberties watchdog. "If you don't define which crimes this applies to - say drug dealing or child pornography - those powers could easily be abused." Worries about the Schengen information system focus on a lack of adequate data- protection provisions and a limited scope for judicial review. Mr Straw sought to emphasise the positive aspects of the government's involvement in EU cooperation on crime, justice and home affairs. "There are clear benefits to engaging with our European partners," he said. "We have been able to protect our borders while joining in measures which will enable us better to tackle cross-border crime." He said later he had reassured colleagues that Britain's involvement in the Echelon surveillance system, a US-led economic espionage network, did not breach accepted EU standards on the interception of communications. Portugal, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, had raised concerns, originating in the European parliament, that Echelon's satellites and listening posts were being used to spy on European companies. "All interception in the UK takes place under a strict legal framework," Mr Straw insisted. Officials said it would take about a year for the Anglo-French treaty on Eurostar checks to be ratified - too late to stop football hooligans heading to the Euro 2000 competition next month. But Mr Straw told BBC radio that the government would "continue to look at whether it is possible, even at this late stage, to introduce emergency legislation to stop hooligans travelling". The Belgian and Dutch governments, members of the Schengen border pact, confirmed that they would reinstate frontier controls for the duration of Euro 2000. A continent sans fronti�res �Under the original 1985 Schengen pact, a group of European Union states agreed to the gradual abolition of border controls and new measures on cross-border policing. All EU member states except Britain and Ireland are members. �London and Dublin have opted out of sections of the agreement removing frontier controls. �Britain now opts into the Schengen information system. UK police and law enforcement agencies will have access to a network of computer databases to help track down stolen vehicles or firearms, or suspects who have fled abroad. �The Schengen information system has 45,000 access points. By the end of 1997 it had 14m records. EU information page on Schengen at http://www.europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l33020.htm End<{{ A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." --Buddha + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 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