Police front anti-terror moves across Europe
01 August 2001
Looking at the steps under discussion or adopted by the EU, it is the role of police and intelligence agencies that are being emphasised. The question of how to fight the roots of terrorism - the debt and poverty caused by imperialist suppression of national political development and the exploitation of natural ressources by large multinational corporations - is not central to the 19 October council declaration. The main points of the declaration focus on the legal steps to be taken by the countries in the fields of mutual legal assistance, extradition and further police cooperation.
The extention of the fight against terrorism will incorporate almost all forms of crime. This opens up the possibility of a much wider range of law enforcement measures to be applied to "ordinary" crime, hitherto countered by "ordinary" police investigation. At the same time civil rights are being put under heavy pressure.
According to a Dutch Statewatch correspondent the government has set up a task force to respond to the action plan published on 5 October. In 43 points it proposes to combat terrorism partly with new ideas, but also with a more intensive use of measures already in existence. The Dutch government sees a bigger role for the intelligence services and wider use of both surveillance, both of e-mails and of the Internet.
The Dutch borders will, according to the action plan, be controlled by more mobile police teams and there will be more resources allocated to regional teams of police officers fighting organised crime. This is a step which will involve closer cooperation between ordinary police and the intelligence service. The government also plans to investigate trafficing in human beings in relation to terrorism; this suggests that terrorists make use of "illegal immigration". All of the agencies that act to combat this crime form will be enlarged.
The German correspondant reports that the number of proposals put forward by the government in its anti-terrorism initiative are incredibly wide-ranging: extended law on on terrorist organisations in the criminal code. More powers, money and personnel for the intelligence services, a new passport and identity card which will include at least a fingerprint and possibly more biometric data. Visas will also include fingerprints. Applicants for naturalisation (citizenship) must be checked by the intelligence services.
In Switzerland the reaction has, according to our correspondent, been calmer and the measures proposed by the government were, more or less, on the table before 11 September. Most of the proposals were launched last year in connection with the debate on emerging right-wing extremism, or after the demonstration against the World Economic Forum in Davos in January this year.
In Norway (not an EU country but a member of Schengen Convention) the chairman of a committee set up to review new police methods, (such as bugging, control of telecommunications and the use of hidden video surveillance), has announced that the committee will speed up its work. Orirginally the plan was to be finished by the end of 2002.
In Denmark the government has announced a number of initiatives, including implementing the UN anti-terrorism financing convention. In November the Minister of Justice, Frank Jensen, will announce the changes to Danish law expected to include further powers to register telecommunications companies and internet providers and to keep information on communications for the police and others to use in investigations. The police will have easier access to phone-tapping in cases concerning breaches of weapons regulations. Changes to the Aliens Act, to enable cooperation between the asylum authorities and the police intelligence service in asylum cases and other cases concerning permission to stay in Denmark, will be strengthened. For instance, through a wider use of denying people permission to stay in the country because of state security; changes in the extra