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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sunday, 6 December 1998 07:20
Subject: Suveillance...
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>======================
>Revealed: secret plan to tap all mobile phones
>
>By Duncan Campbell
>
>Observer (London) Sunday December 6, 1998
>
>Plans for an international network of centres able to tap mobile phones
>anywhere in Europe have been prepared by European law enforcement
>agencies.
>
>Confidential European Union documents leaked in Germany and obtained by
>The Observer outline plans for instant-access centres across Europe,
>equipped to tap every type of communications system, including mobile
>phones, the Internet, fax machines, pagers and interactive cable
>television services.
>
>Under the plan, Enfopol 98, European telecommunications companies will be
>required to build tapping connections into their systems. Each EU
>country's 'interception interface' must be capable of allowing member
>states to tap communications throughout the EU.
>
>The US, Canada and Australia are likely to participate in the network,
>giving the FBI and other non-European security agencies access to
>communications in Europe.
>
>Enfopol 98 will be put into operation as part of the new European
>Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance, which Ministers - including Home
>Secretary Jack Straw and Home Office Minister Kate Hoey - discussed at the
>EU Justice and Home Affairs Council in Brussels last week.
>
>Final details of the convention are likely to be agreed by the council
>early next year. By 2000, member states' parliaments would have to ratify
>it as part of national law.
>
>The leaked document was published last week by Telepolis, a German
>Internet magazine.
>
>A draft resolution to be sent to Ministers after the convention is in
>force specifies 54 requirements for interception laws. When the resolution
>reaches the council many technical details will have been hidden.
>According to the latest leaked Enfopol 98 document, distributed last
>month, they will appear in a 'technical handbook' on interception and in
>'accompanying papers'.
>
>By making new laws in this way, Ministers have evaded public scrutiny and
>even awareness of their plans. "National parliaments, as well as the
>European Parliament and its citizens, are being excluded from the
>development of legislation that has the most profound implications for
>civil liberties," said Tony Bunyan, director of the European civil
>liberties monitoring organisation, Statewatch.
>
>Under the Enfopol plan, interception interfaces in telephone exchanges and
>Internet centres must provide 'real time, full-time' access. Security
>regulations say 'interception interfaces' must be located in 'barrier
>areas with controlled access'. Staff would need security clearances and
>have to comply with 'national security regulations', it being illegal to
>reveal how many people were tapped or how monitoring was done.
>
>Several tapping centres could listen in at once: 'network operators
>(should) make provision for implementing a number of simultaneous
>intercepts.'
>
>Communications services are increasingly using cryptography (codes) to
>protect the privacy of communications. If they do, Enfopol says the codes
>must be broken and information supplied in audible or legible form. 'The
>downloading of cryptographic key material should be immediate,' it says,
>so that 'an efficient, economic and current operation is guaranteed'.
>
>To make the new tapping system simple and fast to operate, a secret expert
>group has been developing a 'tag' system that can identify individuals
>wherever they are.
>
>Called the 'International User Requirements for Interception' (IUR), the
>data to be passed from country to country include not only names,
>addresses and -hone numbers, but credit card numbers, PIN codes, e-mail
>addresses, and computer log-on identities and passwords.
>
>Tapping centres will have to be sent information not only about ordinary
>phone calls, but also about conference calls, redirected calls, unanswered
>calls and even when phones are switched on. Mobile phones will be used to
>track a target's movements. 'Law enforcement agencies require information
>on the most accurate geographical location known to the network for mobile
>subscribers.'
>
>The 40-page document admits the new system 'raises many questions
>regarding national sovereignty', and that the 'interception interfaces'
>will place heavy costs on companies. But it makes no reference to civil
>liberties and human rights. The document "turns civil rights into worthy
>platitudes", Austrian Green MEP Johannes Voggenhuber said last week.
>
>In Britain, preliminary drafts of the agreement have not been seen by the
>House of Commons but have been reviewed by the House of Lords committee on
>the European Community, which has asked for changes to protect individual
>privacy.
>
>Last February, the committee told the Government: "The citizen is unlikely
>to have confidence in any procedure shrouded in secrecy. The existence and
>framework of international mutual assistance involving interception of
>telecommunications... should be clear and transparent to all."
>
>** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
>is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
>in receiving the included information for research and educational
>purposes. **
>
==============================================
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