Switzerland: Big Brother Awards
01 November 2000
On 28 October, the Big Brother Awards were held for the first time in Switzerland at a ceremony in the community centre Rote Fabrik in Zurich. The awards were initiated by the Swiss Internet User Group (SIUG), the Rote Fabrik as well as the Archiv Schnüffelstaat Schweiz and was supported by the Zurich based weekly newspaper WoZ. The nominations were submitted from September onwards through the internet and by mail. A jury then selected from around 40 nominations that were received. Amongst others, jury members included Paul Rechsteiner, the president of the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions, Valerie Garbani, a Social Democrat member of the National Council, the writer Daniel de Roulet as well as Dore Heim, the Zurich Commissioner for Equal Rights of Men and Women. The Awards for the best surveillance agencies were divided into four categories.
The State Award, for which government representatives and federal cantonal and municipal agencies could be nominated, went to the Federal Department of Defence for its new surveillance system SATOS 3. With the help of antennas in Heimenschwand and Lenk, the system captures satellite bound telecommunications and filters them according to key words. Intelligence is passed to the foreign intelligence service (which is part of the ministry of defence) and the Federal Police (political intelligence). The outgoing defence minister, Adolf Ogi declared in parliament in December 1999 that every phone call, fax etc. from Switzerland to Libya or vice versa could be tapped. Theoretically it was also possible to tap communications by mobile phone within the country, but this, it was said, would not happen.
The Business Award went to Basel based chemical and pharmaceutical company Roche SA, for regular urine testing of their apprentices. If residues of illegal drugs are found, apprentices fear being sacked. This practice is still in use, despite strong criticism by the federal data protection commissioner Mr Odilo Guntern.
The E- or Telecommunication Award went to Swisscom, the former state monopoly and now privatised telecommunications company. For six months, the company stores "traffic data" which, in the case of mobile phones, includes the location of the caller and the person being called can be traced throughout the time span. This information is passed on to the prosecutor and thus the police in the case of an investigation, provided they can present a judicial warrant. Since this practice was first under discussion in 1997, Swisscom has always denied that it had taken place. However, the company is obliged to reveal its interception of telecommunications under existing laws and decrees, which even sets the price the police have to pay for such a tracking. The night before the awards, Swisscom threatened to take the organisers to court if they failed to withdraw them from the list.
The Life Time Award was given to Mr Urs von Daeniken, Chief of the Federal (Political) Police since the beginning of the 1990's. Through his consistent endeavour, Mr von Daeniken managed to help the Federal Police out of a crisis which beset the force in 1989, after the scandal over its agencies files. The Federal Police has, for the first time, a (very vague) legal basis. The Federal Police store about 50,000 "subversives" in its computer files at any given time. As it has recently been integrated into the Federal Office of Police, Mr Von Daeniken will soon have a new job: he will become head of the Service for Analysis and Prevention, which is the intelligence department of the Federal Police Office, where he will continue the same work under a new title.
Apart from the awards for the best "surveillance villians", a "Winkelried" award was granted ("Winkelried" was a medieval Swiss hero, who according to legend drew all the enemies' weapons on him saving the Swiss in a historic battle). The award was given to Mr T.F. During the Gulf war, he was working in a regional computing centre which manages the