New EU anti-terrorism laws must pass necessity test

1.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 5th Nov 2007

Speaking in advance of the expected approval by the European Commission tomorrow (Nov 6th )of a package of measures said to be directed at fighting terrorism, Liberal Democrat European Justice Spokeswoman, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, said:

"These proposed measures must be subjected to a rigorous test of necessity. It is not self-evident that piling on yet more layers of surveillance, profiling and criminalisation of conduct will pass that hurdle. Why not first tackle major existing failures like hoarding of essential information and non-implementation by some Member States of the 2002 terrorism legislation on which the Commission has been unable to produce any evaluation report since 2004?

"The Barroso Commission promised zeal in evaluating the need for regulations, but it failed to deliver in regard to, for example, the privacy impact of collection of biometrics of visa applicants or transferring European air passenger name records to the US. This time the Commission cannot be let off the hook of doing meaningful, and not tickbox, impact assessments.

"We also have to watch for both function creep - where measures justified on grounds of fighting terrorism are usable against even petty crime - and a familiar pattern whereby Member States launder liberty-threatening laws through the EU but refuse EU competence for civil liberties and data protection safeguards."