ECCHR joins legal challenge against EU-USA surveillance program
On 21 May
2010 the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed
third-party submissions in a Belgian Constitutional Court challenge against the
EU-USA Passenger Name Record (PNR) Agreement and mass surveillance system.
The Agreement - signed in July 2007 between the EU and the US Department of Homeland Security - ostensibly aims to facilitate US access to European PNR data for the purposes of combating terrorism and serious transnational crime. In practice, however, the Agreement - which has been widely criticized by bodies such as the European Parliament, the European Data Protection Supervisor, the European Agency for Fundamental Rights as well as civil liberties, privacy and anti-racist activists - goes much further. It allows US law enforcement authorities to collect and store European personal data for at least 15 years, subjecting all passengers to potentially far-reaching surveillance irrespective of whether they are suspected of having committed any offence. Controversially, the Agreement enables US authorities to engage in data profiling surveillance - proactively linking innocent passengers to 'suspicious' passengers based on innocuous factors such as travel patterns or credit card use and (potentially) discriminatory grounds such as religious or ethnic background.
ECCHR's third-party submission was filed in support of the application filed (on 1 March 2010) by the Belgian branch of the Ligue des Droits de L´Homme (the Human Rights league) against the domestic legislation of 30 November 2009 implementing the EU-USA PNR agreement. We submit that the PNR Agreement breaches three key fundamental rights - including the right to respect for private life (pursuant to Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union), the right to data protection pursuant to Article 8 of the Charter, read in conjunction with the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and the right to freedom from discrimination (pursuant to Article 21 of the Charter and Article 14 of the European Convention). Accordingly, we have asked the Belgian Court to annul the implementing legislation on constitutional grounds.
The Agreement - signed in July 2007 between the EU and the US Department of Homeland Security - ostensibly aims to facilitate US access to European PNR data for the purposes of combating terrorism and serious transnational crime. In practice, however, the Agreement - which has been widely criticized by bodies such as the European Parliament, the European Data Protection Supervisor, the European Agency for Fundamental Rights as well as civil liberties, privacy and anti-racist activists - goes much further. It allows US law enforcement authorities to collect and store European personal data for at least 15 years, subjecting all passengers to potentially far-reaching surveillance irrespective of whether they are suspected of having committed any offence. Controversially, the Agreement enables US authorities to engage in data profiling surveillance - proactively linking innocent passengers to 'suspicious' passengers based on innocuous factors such as travel patterns or credit card use and (potentially) discriminatory grounds such as religious or ethnic background.
ECCHR's third-party submission was filed in support of the application filed (on 1 March 2010) by the Belgian branch of the Ligue des Droits de L´Homme (the Human Rights league) against the domestic legislation of 30 November 2009 implementing the EU-USA PNR agreement. We submit that the PNR Agreement breaches three key fundamental rights - including the right to respect for private life (pursuant to Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union), the right to data protection pursuant to Article 8 of the Charter, read in conjunction with the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and the right to freedom from discrimination (pursuant to Article 21 of the Charter and Article 14 of the European Convention). Accordingly, we have asked the Belgian Court to annul the implementing legislation on constitutional grounds.