Control Orders to be Scrapped

From BBC News: The UK Prime Minister has announced that the controversial 'Control Order' measure needs to be replaced. The statement follows mounting speculation over an alleged 'power struggle' in the Coalition - an allegation that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has denied this morning.

The Coalition Government has received praise for is being widely reported as a progressive move. However, the question of what precisely they are to be replaced with remains unresolved - a fact reported with suspicion by liberals and hope by conservatives. The Telegraph's Benedict Brogan, a conservative journalist so close to Cameron some have identified him as a potential replacement for Andy Coulson, has taken to complementing Clegg's hardheaded realism in government:

As with tuition fees, spending cuts and much else, Mr Clegg has discovered with control orders that the realities of government appear much starker from the inside. What I find striking is the effort Mr Cameron is making already to ease his deputy past what will be a difficult moment when it becomes clear – as I believe it will – that control orders have survived the review largely unscathed. The Prime Minister has decreed that he will not accept a compromise that makes it easier for the eight currently held, and any others in future, to do harm. He wants to make it possible for Mr Clegg to agree.

Actually, the Deputy Prime Minister does. This is what we must start giving him credit for, and is perhaps the most significant development of the whole affair: we are learning more about Mr Clegg’s successful transformation from a politician of opposition to a politician of government. Mr Clegg can say that he has gone from
the easy life of an Opposition Liberal to a Government Liberal. He has been confronted with some nasty choices that have left some of his colleagues and many of his supporters weak at the knees, and he has compromised where necessary in the interest of taking the right decision. In government he has discovered the facts, and his views have changed accordingly. It may look painful now, but his bet is that voters will reward him for it in 2015.

Such generosity may be an indication that the government is anticipating another politically difficult compromise for Nick Clegg.

News: Republican Dissidents using Spy Cameras on MI5 Base

From the Belfast Telegraph: There are reports today that Oglaigh na hEireann, the splinter dissident republican outfit, had established a sophisticated operation of four digital spy cameras in a forest overlooking the MI5 base at Palace Baracks in Northern Ireland. The cameras, which are likely to have been there for months, are reported to have been battery powered, equipped with memory sticks and to have successfully covered all angles of the base.

With recent increases in personnel, the barracks are the largest MI5 base outside London, employing more than 300 people.

It is feared ONH, which bombed Palace Barracks in April, has used the recordings to target soldiers and build profiles on spooks working at the new spy base.

Senior security sources in London tried to play down the cameras being found, saying only that trees were cleared and a new fence erected because of concerns the wooded area could conceal gunmen.

EU Parliament Gives Green Light to EU-US SWIFT Agreement

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung has announced that the EU-Parliament has approved the new US-EU SWIFT agreement that would involve communication of European bank transfer data. According to the NZZ story, 484 parliamentarians voted in favor of allowing the treaty, 109 voted against. The agreement will have a term of 5 years by which time, the EU hopes to have developed its own monitoring system.

Comment: EDRI on the New SWIFT Deal

European Digital Rights has a comment on the new SWIFT access deal signed earlier this week. It maintains that this deal has "no significant improvements from the Agreement rejected by the European Parliament in February 2010":

Unfortunately, the new adopted text still allows for bulk data transfers. The Parliament would have liked to replace bulk data with targeted searches carried out by an EU-based authority but according to MEP Birgit Sippel, "We cannot reduce the problem of bulk data for the moment as we do not have the technical
capability."

The retention period is still 5 years and there is no real system in place from the US on a binding legal redress. The US Privacy Act court clauses only apply to US citizens and legal residents. Therefore there is currently no right of judicial review for foreign citizens and residents (including EU) under the US law.

Another key critique to the current text is the role of Europol that should authorize the data transfer requests from the US. Besides the fact that Europol is not a judicial authority, as requested by the European Parliament in May 2010 Resolution, the incentive from this agency to limit the amount of data being transferred is extremely reduced due to the fact that they can actually request data searches from the US.

Detecter Deliverable: Unilateral Exceptions to International Law

Deliverable D06.1 was written by Mathias Vermeulen and Martin Scheinin as part of Work Package 04. You can read the whole thing here.

Executive Summary

This paper on unilateral exceptions to human rights and international law in the fight against terrorism prepares the ground for two further deliverables under the DETECTER project, namely a policy-oriented paper summarizing the results and applying them in respect of EU law and policies, and a study specifically addressing detection technologies. It is well known that many governments have resorted to a wide range of constructions to justify, under international law, their unilateral exceptions to human rights in the name of countering terrorism. This paper seeks to take stock of a whole range of arguments, doctrines or constructions that states may resort to when seeking to justify their unilateral exceptions to human rights norms in the fight against terrorism. Many of those constructions have a valid legal basis and a proper scope of application. However, they also have their limitations, to the effect that often they affect only a specific treaty, or the availability of a procedure, but do not affect the substantive obligations of the state in question under international law. In many cases this results from the overlap of treaty law and customary norms of international law. Some of the constructions are open to abuse, i.e. bad faith efforts to distort international law to the detriment of human rights. Because of the complexity of the combined effect of the various excuses and exceptions, there is a need for a holistic approach that seeks to address the combined effect of the various constructions of unilateral exception.

Some of the main conclusions of the paper are highlighted in this executive summary. To start with:

• None of the constructions discussed affects a state's obligations under peremptory norms of international law (jus cogens).
• Outside that realm of peremptory norms, some of the constructions discussed have an impact upon both treaty law and customary international law, hence affecting the substantive human rights obligations of a state. This would be the case for the lex specialis effect of international humanitarian law during armed conflict but only when lex specialis is properly construed as an interpretive effect upon the scope or content of a particular human right.
• Counter-terrorism measures may qualify as permissible limitations on human rights, again when properly construed. This conclusion calls for a rigorous test for permissible limitations, rather than an all-encompassing act of 'balancing'.
• Most constructions discussed in this paper pertain merely to human rights treaties and do not affect the state's obligations under customary international law. As there is a high degree of substantive overlap between human rights treaties and customary norms of international law, resorting to these excuses therefore usually only has procedural consequences. It does not affect the substantive obligations of the state under international law, but precludes the competence of an international (or regional) human rights court or treaty body to address the breach of international law through its regular monitoring mechanisms.
• The most relevant constructions of unilateral exceptions to human rights treaty obligations are the power of a state to declare a state of emergency and to derogate from some but not all of its human rights treaty obligations, reduction of the scope of a state's human rights obligations when it acts outside its own territory, the right to enter permissible reservations upon the signature or ratification of a treaty and, in some cases, withdrawal from a treaty.
• There is some state practice of declaring a state of emergency because of acts of or a threat of terrorism. When applied under the fairly strict requirements for derogation enshrined in the treaties in question and when subject to international monitoring through the procedures available under the treaties in question, derogation is a permissible and even recommended mechanism for reacting to situations of a genuine threat to the life of the nation.
• Although the European Court of Human Rights has in some cases implied that a state is not subject to exactly the same obligations when it is, through its agents, acting outside its own territory, caution is required when resorting to this excuse. Other human rights treaties and customary norms of human rights law may remain applicable, and even the position of the European Court of Human Rights appears to be shifting (or inconsistent).
• Somewhat surprisingly, states have not resorted to reservations under human rights treaties with express reference to terrorism. However, a very small number of existing reservations, including in respect of the right to a fair trial, may have a bearing upon the treatment of terrorism suspects.
• Some, primarily regional, human rights treaties would allow for a state's unilateral withdrawal from the treaty. In practice, the option of withdrawal has figured in the political discourse, for instance after a government has received a ruling by a regional human rights court but no state has actually resorted to withdrawal from human rights treaties as a response to terrorism.

Detecter Deliverable: Privacy, Secret Detention Centres and Overflights

Deliverable 16.1 was written by Geir Ulfstein as part of Work Package 08. You can read the whole thing here.

Executive Summary

1. Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) establishes the right to privacy. The implementation of this right is monitored by the Human Rights Committee. The Committee has emphasized that interference in the right to privacy must be foreseeable; mechanisms should be established to prevent abuse of collected information and to ensure review, supervision and redress; and vulnerable groups should be protected. The Committee has, however, not established clear guidance about which substantive measures would be considered a violation of the right of privacy.
2. News media and NGOs reported in 2005 about secret detention centres and overflights in Europe as part of US counter-terrorism strategy. Such activities gave rise to several human rights concerns. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe initiated an inquiry into these matters. The Secretary General requested member states to provide relevant information. The European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) prepared an opinion on the human rights aspects. Cooperation was also established with the European Parliament of the European Union. This cooperation uncovered suspicious patterns of military and civilian aircraft and indications of secret detention centres. They were also able to put political pressure on the respective international organs and on national governments. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, however, failed to follow up strongly, and the European Parliament deplored the lack of follow up by the Council of the European Union, and by member states.
3. Several UN organs have been involved in the issues of secret detention and overflights, including the Human Rights Committee, the Committee Against Torture, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. The UN organs have generally been more reactive than what was the case of the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly. But all the bodies have, within their mandates, addressed these matters. They have helped to uncover certain facts, but have not been able to establish ‘hard facts’ about the relevant activities. These bodies have, however, the benefit of being able to have a more continuous focus on such cases. Furthermore, they have a global focus, and may thus engage in activities beyond the European context.

News: New US/EU Agreement on Transfer of SWIFT Banking Data

From European Voice: A new agreement to grant US Counter-Terrorism authorities access to European banking transaction data held in the SWIFT database:

Final agreement on the new wording was reached on Friday (25 January). After the draft agreement had been initialled by Malmström on 10 June, MEPs had demanded
changes to the text concerning the bulk transfer of data, the creation of an EU counterpart to the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP), and EU oversight of TFTP data-processing on US soil.
The three largest political groups in the Parliament – the centre-right EPP, centre-left PES and liberal ALDE – are now in favour of the agreement. In February, the Parliament, using new powers under the EU's Treaty of Lisbon, had rejected an interim agreement on SWIFT transfers.

Over at the Legalift Mathias Vermeulen has a discussion of some of the new restrictions build in to the new agreement, such as a ban on the use of this information for data mining, the possibility of administrative redress for EU citizens and the involvement of Europol in verifying and approving US requests for data.

In its coverage the Register points out that the European Data Protection Supervisor continues to question the need for mass transaction and long term storage of this data, and has additionally called for more oversight.

News: Video Analytics to be Used by British Army to Spot 'Suspicious Activity'

From BBC News: Video analytics programmes are being developed at military research laboratories at Porton Down in Wiltshire. They are emphasising the use of the technology for tackling the use of improvised explosive devices. By automatically highlighting footage of unusual behaviour, such as going off road, captured by plane and helicopter mounted cameras, they hope to make the tracking of enemies more effective:

Andrew Seedhouse, from the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), said: "Think of it as the ultimate CCTV system.

"An incident occurs, perhaps an IED goes off, and we can use this host of data to back track over time.

"Who was near the scene and where were they before the incident? What buildings or vehicles can we now associate with the incident?"

He said the research could help scientists to look for anomalies in behaviour and environment and alert appropriate forces before an incident occurred.

The video analytics are being combined with other methods for sophisticated modelling of the surveyed terrain, as you can see in the 'British Forces News' video below.

Also interesting is the same scientist Andrew Seedhouse's comment that the only way to tell insurgents from everybody else is "by what they do -so the whole experiment is about tracking people, finding what they're up to each day, who they're meeting, what they take with them, what they do, where they place things, and then hopefully we'll be able to track back through all that stuff and find out where they are now":

DETECTER: Survey of Counter-Terrorism Datamining and Related Programmes

D08.1 was written by Daniel Moeckli and James Thurman as part of Work Package 6. You can read the whole thing here.

Executive Summary

1. The survey reflects a broad definition of data mining and also includes coverage of related programmes relating to data collection and database construction.
2. In the West, collection activities have increased dramatically in the name of countering terrorism. In addition to data collection involving air passengers, this survey also describes general law enforcement collection activities as well as those specifically targeting terrorist activity.
3. Air passenger information: in the United States, data mining in this area was proposed in order to identify terrorist suspects who might not otherwise raise suspicions. In the European Union, too, there seems to be interest in analyzing a passenger’s travel activities in order to identify suspicious patterns which might indicate criminal activity.
4. Private companies and non-law enforcement databases: in the US there has been concern about the incorporation of data from these sources into general law enforcement data bases.
5. Data analysis programmes that have been proposed and in some cases implemented for counter-terrorism purposes are also considered. These include not only data mining programmes but also a discernable trend of providing tools which guide users in their analysis and decision-making.

News: Negotiations Reopen on US Access to SWIFT Bank Data

From the Lift: The EU and US have begun talks on a new agreement to enable transfers of European bank transfer information held on the SWIFT database to US authorities. Talks are taking place between the European Commission and United States Treasury and it is hoped an agreement can be reached by the end of June:

A Commission source told Euractiv.Com that “in the coming months little will be known about the substance of the actual negotiations”

The agreement will be concluded only after the adoption by the member states of the EU at qualified majority voting and the approval of the European Parliament. The Parliament introduced two weeks ago theconditions on the content of a future agreement, including for bulk transfers of personal data to the USA to be avoided, if necessary by processing them within the EU, and for Europe’s citizens to be guaranteed the right of appeal to the US authorities.

Comment: John Rentoul Attacks Chakrabarti's 'Shameless' Endorsement of Surveillance

Regular Independent columnist John Rentoul blogs about Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti’s appearance on last night’s Newsnight programme. He writes under the headline ‘Shameless: I Want a Surveillance Society’ - he likes to call her ‘Shameless Chakrabarti’ you see, which I presume is an attempt to imply she’s a hypocrite: ‘Oh so now you’re in favour of surveillance’ this line goes – ‘I thought you civil liberties people were against it’. This is already puzzling, as Liberty have consistently defended the principle that the security services ought to be able to use targeted surveillance against people about whom there is specific evidence to imply involvement in serious crime, though they campaign vigorously against arbitrary and unjustified use of surveillance. Rentoul’s attack focuses on her continued criticism of control orders:

What would she do instead of control orders, she was asked by Alex Carlile, the Liberal Democrat peer and independent reviewer of anti-terrorist law. After trying to hide behind trying them in court - what if there is not enough evidence for a conviction yet enough to warrant concern? - and the use of intercept evidence - not relevant in this case - she was eventually embarrassed into mumbling an answer: "Put them under surveillance."

Presumably she wants more CCTV, especially around the homes of terrorist suspects, and monitoring of their telephones and internet use.

Surveillance would either be prohibitively expensive, or intensely intrusive (thereby reinventing control orders in another form), or ineffective. Several suspects subject to control orders have already legged it to who knows where; any weakening of the controls would make it easier for them to abscond.

Given how small the numbers of people are who have been put under control orders (about 12 as of February this year) I think his argument about cost is of marginal importance, even if his assessment of the relative expense is accurate.

It also seems highly disputable that even intrusive surveillance would ‘reinvent’ control orders in another form – control orders primarily involve restrictions on people’s freedom, by imposing restrictions on who suspects can and can’t associate with, or imposing curfews and various degrees of house arrest, rather than intrusions into their privacy (though certainly the practice of 'tagging' is invasive). Now you could maybe argue that the additional invasions of privacy would always be worse than the restrictions of freedom. That would be a interesting position to take, and might even be coherent (though I suspect most would find it unpersuasive). But Rentoul’s not coming out and saying that. Instead he seems to want to have it both ways: control orders aren’t effective enough as they are, anything weaker will let the bad guys get away, but using surveillance beyond what is in place now will be just as bad. He’s painting Liberty as an organisation that is indifferent to the needs of effective policing and intelligence gathering. On the contrary their criticism of the use of control orders specifically takes aim at the claims of efficacy - take their earlier response to Lord Carlile’s previous announcement that there was no alternative to the control order regime or for that matter Shami Chakrabarti's piece in today's Times:

These orders were dreamt up by officials in 2005 and allow terror suspects to be placed under house arrest for ever without any semblance of criminal charge or trial. Apart from being profoundly unfair and un-British (the term “control order” comes from apartheid South Africa), this scheme is profoundly unsafe. A number of its targets have disappeared, and one former “controlee” had a habit of turning up, complete with plastic tag, at large public meetings attended by members of the present and past Cabinets.

And, as I said, they've consistently defended the use of targetted surveillance when the evidence supports it:

We take no issue with the use of intrusive surveillance powers per se. While intrusive surveillance will always engage Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA)1 (right to privacy) such intrusion can be justified if it falls within the legitimate purposes set out under Article 8 (e.g. if done to prevent crime and threats to national security) and if it can be shown to be necessary and proportionate in all the circumstances.

What's shameless about that?

DETECTER on BBC Midlands Today

Millimetre Wave Scanners and Mastectomies

There's an interesting discussion piece on politicsdaily.com by a woman who whose breast surgery confused TSA officials following a 'full body scan' prompting further examination.

She is not upset about her experience, concluding simply that 'the takeaway here is, if you have fake body parts, you should be prepared to explain them to the full-body screening folks at the TSA.' However, a number of comments left underneath her article report terrible experiences of insensitive, and wholly avoidable treatment. A selection:

"Wow, I thought I was the only one. TSA in Tampa held me on display for about 20 minutes while they tried to figure out was was on my chest. I was put through the full body scanner also sans shoes. After I was finished, I was told "DO NOT MOVE!" "Ok, but can I please have my sandals, they have already been scanned?" 'DO NOT MOVE." I suppose they were busy, scanning another woman's BARE FEET." Ok, they were having communication problems with the guys in the little room. I figured they were laughing so hard at the scan they could not respond. I am a 66 year old grandmother, the scan had to be really exciting. After 20 minutes the "gentleman" returned and announced to all who were within a 100 foot radius, "There is something on her left breast." They must be fixated on left breasts. At that point I realized they were talking about my breast prothesis. I am a breast cancer survivor. I explained this and was told "DO NOT MOVE!" At this time, the TSA moron told another that she would have to pat me down. No, would you please step into a private area, just pat her down. I offer to whip it out. He was not happy with that idea. I understand security, but please, a little consideration. Would they stop a man with a penal implant? Doubtful. After all, this was a bomb of a boob."

"Okay, I have to comment. I had the same problem. When they did a biopsy to diagnose my breast cancer, they inserted a few metal clips to mark the place of the tumor. Because I went out of state for my mastectomy and reconstruction, I had to fly. And I had the same thing happen. Stopped at security for setting off a metal detector (this was before the full body scans) and then "searched" with the wand right there in the airport, in front of everyone...and she kept waving it over my left breast (yeah - my left, too) and saying, "It's something here." I kept telling them it was probably the surgical clip. I finally had to take out my mammograms (I'd brought the films for my surgeon, and thankfully, they were in my carry-on) and show them it was just a clip. It helped that my neighbor, who works for TSA, showed up about then and told them he knew me."

Comment: Gambetta on In Flight Terror

Diego Gambetta, well known for his social scientific studies of the Mafia and organised crime, has an interesting article in the Guardian about why terrorists continue to target aeroplanes when other, less well protected targets might seem more attractive.

Admitting the necessarily speculative nature of the endevour, he discusses purely practical issues: the fact that only a small amount of explosive, for example is needed to cause the intended chaos and the fact that flights, as they involve both an origin and a destination, raise questions and fears in two countries at once. He goes on to make a vivid case for the symbolic value of successfully hitting 'the enemy' in exactly the spot where most effort and resources have been expended in the name of security:

My hunch is that a reason to target air travel is precisely because it is the area in which the west has concentrated its maximum overt security efforts after 9/11. Piercing the thick barriers of checks all passengers have to go through to board a plane is in itself a success. It amounts to defying the toughest challenge, freshening up memories of 9/11, showing that even a puny David, farcically armed with just a pair of explosive underpants, can hit Goliath right where he feels strongest.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to kill, but succeeded in making the west quake in its boots, engendering a hysterical worldwide security response, shaming the US security services, and inducing Obama to resurrect the dismal and counter-productive rhetoric of "we are at war against al-Qaida", which one hoped had departed with Bush. Had Abdulmutallab succeeded in killing, the global havoc caused would not have been that much greater. He could never have achieved that by aiming at softer targets.

I think there is always a danger in trying to infer to much about the intentions of actors from the effects of their actions, particularly in the case of violence. I do, however, think its interesting to reflect on governments' (and societies') reactions to terrorism and the calculus of risk - while countries targetted by terrorists have a necessarily limited ability to stop terrorism from happening its at least plausible to think they have more control over how they choose to respond to such events.

News: European Parliament due to Decide on SWIFT Soon

From the Financial Times: We have reported on the issue of US access to the SWIFT banking transactions database before. The agreement provisionally came into force on February the 1st, but is subject to confirmation by a European Parliament vote in the plenary session of 8th-11th of February next week. The FT reports that the Parliament, long concerned at the privacy implications of US access, is likely to vote down the agreement in the face of strong objections from the US:

Adam Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets control at the Treasury, said the intelligence programme processing the Swift data "provides perhaps the most important source on terrorism financing".

The European parliament looks set to block an interim agreement negotiated by the European Commission and representatives of the member states. "It's very unlikely to go in favour of the Swift agreement," one diplomat said.

News: UK Introducing Compulsory Body Scans

From BBC News: Under new security rules passengers selected for screening by the Millimetre Wave 'Naked Body Scanners' will be forced to consent to the scanning on pain of not being allowed on the flight. The machines are in place at Heathrow and Manchester airport and will be installed at Birmingham airport later this month:

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said in the immediate future only a small proportion of airline passengers would be selected for scanning.

In a written statement to the House of Commons, he said: "If a passenger is selected for scanning, and declines, they will not be permitted to fly."

News: Florence DETECTER Programme Announced

The second DETECTER Project Meeting will take place in Florence on Thursday the 18th of February 2010. The Programme will run as follows:

9.00 – 9.15 Introduction by Prof. Martin Scheinin, Professor of International Law at the European University Institute and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism

9.15 – 11.00 Identification of terrorist suspects through detection technologies: risks and opportunities
Chair: Martin Scheinin (European University Institute, Italy)

• Ehud Givon (WECU-technologies, Israel) – Security through intent detection
• Jacques Verraes (Europan Commission, Belgium) – Data protection issues related to identification of terrorist suspects
• Ben Hayes (Statewatch, United Kingdom) – Respondent to presentations of Commission and WeCU technologies

11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break

11.30 – 13.30 Human rights aspects of the use of detection technologies

Chair: Daniel Moeckli (University of Zurich, Switzerland)

• Roos van der hilst (University of Oslo, Norway) – Human rights risks of selected detection technologies - sample uses by governments
• Emilio Mordini (HIDE, Italy) - Biometrics, Body, Identity
• R. Leenes (University of Tilburg, the Netherlands) – Location based surveillance – why planes, trains and automobiles are the new castles

13.30 – 15.00 Lunch

15.00-17.00 Martin Scheinin presenting WP4 Deliverable on "Developments in the Declarations of Exceptions, Claims of Inapplicability, or Unilateral Modifications in Respect of Internation Law for the Sake of Counter-Terrorism"

Limited Places - To register, please e-mail mathias.vermeulen@eui.eu

Martin Scheinin on Body Scanners and Profiling

DETECTER Partner Martin Scheinin has a piece in the Guardian. He argues against the idea that the aim of preventing acts of terrorism always trumps privacy or other fundamental rights and that any restrictions of such rights ought to be specifically provided for in clear law ensuring their effectiveness, necessity and proportionality. A few select quotes:

...The current generation of body scanners entail an unnecessary and therefore disproportionate intrusion into privacy, by showing a graphic image of a naked human person to one or more observers. It would be technologically easy to avoid this, by securing that no images are ever stored, and by using an algorithm to replace on the observer's screen the image of a real person with a standard animation figure but places any suspicious items on that image...

What is worse, body scanners are ineffective. They are unlikely to detect 80 grams of PETN explosives hidden in the underware of a person. And once it is known that body scanners are in use, they are easy to avoid by hiding this type of explosives in a body cavity or in a commercial item in one's hand luggage...

There are better ways than body scanners and group-related profiling to improve security at airports and elsewhere. The technology already exists for detecting from distance most explosive substances, including PETN. Together with professional observation of behavioral patterns this provides a prospect of respecting privacy while at the same time doing a better job in preventing acts of terrorism. It seems to be the unwarranted obsession to know more about the perceived bad person that has slowed down work to detect explosives....

The article also features a link to his latest report written in his capacity as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, highlighting the erosion of the right to privacy in the fight against terrorism.

News: New Security Measures for UK Airports

From the BBC: In a statement to the House of Commons earlier today, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the recommendations arising from a review of airport security and further intelligence briefings. The main measures include:

• Direct Flights from Yemen to the UK are suspended until security concerns are addressed.
• A "no fly" list is to be established to prevent suspected terrorists from travelling to the UK.
• A second list of lower risk suspects will be established entailing 'special measures' for those attempting to fly to the UK, such as more stringent screening (officials are not currently specifying anything further).
• All UK airports and ports to follow the 'e-borders' scheme, designed to collect personal data on all passengers entering or exiting the country, by the end of the year.
• Enhanced global cooperation to enable suspect individuals to be checked against watchlists 24 hours before flying to or via the UK.
• Full Body Scanners at British airports next week.
• New Intelligence teams to identify threats to British security abroad.

News: UK Equality and Human Rights Commission Say Body Scanners Breach Privacy

From the Times: Trevor Phillips, head of the UK watchdog created under the Equality Act (2006) in order to uphold nondiscrimination, has declared them a violation of privacy law established by the Human Rights Act.

They are calling on the UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson to explain in detail how the government will ensure that implementation of body scanning is compliant with the right to privacy. In particular they have raised privacy concerns with the use of body scanners on the disabled, the elderly, preoperative transsexuals and those with potentially embarrassing medical aids.

An EHRC spokesman said the use of profiling was “discriminatory, contrary to domestic legislation and international standards, and is harmful to community relations”.

A source at the watchdog added: “Scanners have a negative impact on people’s right to privacy, particularly the disabled, older people and children. Transsexuals and transgender people would be particularly vulnerable.

“We are talking about very intimate pictures. To be blunt, one could imagine a bunch of loutish security guards seeing some attractive women in the queue and all rushing into the office saying, ‘Let’s have a look’.”