Terrorism

There is some debate about the fight against terrorism after the attacks by Mohamed M. in Toulouse. Commenting on demands by conservatives for more data retention schemes, Green home affairs expert Jan Philipp Albrecht said:

"The calls by anti-terrorism bureaucrats and home affairs ministers for new data retention schemes after the series of murders by Mohamed M. are inappropriate and wrong. In light of the fact that retained telecommunications data was not needed in order to identify the assassin and that the perpetrator was able to carry out his sinister acts even though he was already on the U.S. terrorist list clearly demonstrates that mass data retention for countering terrorism is sadly useless.

The renewed request for the retention of telecommunications and air passenger data in Europe reveals that the EU's wrongheaded anti-terrorism policy has not been based on facts. Instead of strengthening local investigators and case-based cooperation among member states' agencies, the conservatives only want to put more people behind computers to collect unnecessary data on unsuspicious people. This is not only wrong, it is dangerous."

The home affairs committee of the European Parliament will vote on the passenger data agreement with the United States next Tuesday (27 March). The final decision is supposed to take place in plenary on 20 April.

Jan Philipp Albrecht presented a legal study on 14 March which showed that the agreement in its current form is in breach of EU data protection law. The study is available here: http://www.greens-efa.eu/de/use-and-transfer-of-passenger-name-records-to-the-united-states-5516.html

Press release of Jan Philipp Albrecht from 1 February: http://www.greens-efa.eu/de/data-retention-pnr-5241.html

For further information, you can reach Jan Philipp Albrecht on his German mobile number +49-175-1656698.