MEPs Divided on Data Retention Proposal, Compromise With Council
Voting today (Wed.) on mandatory storage of phone and Internet traffic data, the European Parliament (EP) is badly split on the antiterror measure. Many who back the proposed directive, a compromise between the EP’s 2 largest political groups -- the Socialists and the European People’s Party -- and the Justice & Home Affairs (JHA) Council and European Commission (EC), admit it’s flawed but say it’s needed to fight serious crime. Many other MEPS decry it for failing to balance national security with human rights. Others rage at what they call a “back-door” compromise. The proposal is so disliked in some quarters that the Irish govt. is said to be prepared to challenge the directive in the European Court of Justice if, as expected, it’s adopted.
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The EC and the U.K. Presidency are hoping to win after months of wrangling. While the text differs in major ways from the directive the EC proposed in Sept., the Commission thinks this is “the best possible deal at this point in time,” a spokesman for Justice Comr. Franco Frattini said Tues. Frattini told MEPs in a Tues. debate the compromise highlights the “shared resolve” of the 3 European Union institutions to collaborate against organized crime.
U.K. Home Secy. Charles Clarke, who heads the JHA Council, said many ministers had doubts about trying for a “first-reading” agreement with the EP, a tack he has taken in trying to nail a data retention law before Austria takes the Presidency next month. But it’s important for the EP to commit to action in this area, Clarke said. After MEPs and the communications industry howled, the Council softened its stance on the directive’s pricklier bits, including the period and types of traffic data required to be stored. But Alexander Alvaro, who authored the civil liberties committee report critical of data retention, said MEPs “budged a lot” to find a compromise only to find themselves stuck with a proposal ministers hadn’t agreed on officially.
Supporters insist the final version would strengthen the EP. MEPs may have “ceded ground” to other entities, but they also gained a voice in the decision-making process, said one MEP. For the first time, the EP participated in a move affecting internal security, said a Socialist MEP. Parliamentary resistance to Council and EC proposals forced those bodies to revamp some of their provisions.
An Italian member of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group blasted “the left” for stressing “propaganda and demagoguery” over guarding citizens. Some lawmakers believe the directive is a way to protect basic freedoms, said Socialist MEP Michael Cashman. There are costs to business and individuals, he said, but the cost of doing nothing is “cataclysmic.”
The right to privacy isn’t a “sacred cow,” but the directive is the wrong approach, a Green Party member said, calling for better analysis of telecom and Internet data and more cooperation among security services. Lawmakers talk of better regulation “and then we get nonsense like this,” she said. The balance isn’t right, said Finnish MEP Alexander Stubb of the Christian Democrats. “We're chasing the wrong crooks,” he said. Criminals lacking the wit to use Hotmail or the like are stupid, and they're the ones being targeted, he said.
Lack of online security, not of data retention, is feeding crime, said Dutch Socialist MEP Edith Mastenbroek. The Council of Europe cybercrime treaty contains the tools needed to track criminals, she said. The ease of getting around some provisions will leave the directive ineffective, another MEP said.
Industry opposition to data retention hasn’t abated. On Mon., the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham) urged MEPs to “support amendments which do not further damage EU competitiveness.” The organization endorses the lighter regulatory approach taken by the civil liberties committee, saying the Council version will require “50 or more times more data” to be retained than now is the case. “The costs of retaining these masses of data, particularly e-mail, are enormous,” said Simon Hampton, chmn. of AmCham’s digital economy committee. The tally could be 40,000 terabytes “or the equivalent to 10 stacks of files each reaching from Earth to the Moon,” and would cost each affected company over $200 million per year.