Statewatch bulletin, January-February 1997, vol 7 no 1

A special report by Statewatch published at the end of February detailed plans for a joint plan drawn up by the Council of the European Union and the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to introduce a global system for the surveillance of telecommunications – phone calls, e-mails and faxes. Further investigations have revealed that:

a. The decision to go ahead was never discussed by the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers – it was simply agreed by „written procedure“ through an exchange of telexes between the 15 EU governments.

b. The „Requirements“ to be placed on network and service providers by the European Union to enable the surveillance of communications adopted on 17 January 1995 – and not made public until November 1996 – is based on the „Requirements“ drawn up by the FBI in 1992 (and revised in 1994).

The first attempt by the FBI in the United States to get through a new law to allow for the surveillance of all telecommunications was withdrawn from the Congress in June 1991. In March 1992 a redrafted proposal, the Digital Telephony Bill, was sent to the Congress but after major opposition by civil liberties groups it was quietly withdrawn in the autumn of 1992 just before the Presidential election which saw Clinton returned to the White House.