(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has been recently under pressure for having illicitly monitored the e-mails between Spiegel correspondent Susanne Koelbl and Afghanistan's Commerce Minister Amin Farhang.

The German parliamentary commission in charge with investigating the activities of the secret services (PKG) criticised BND, believing the agency had been compromised by this case that it considered "a grave breach of basic rights". "The trust between the PKG and the leadership of the BND has been violated by this," stated PKG. The commission also considered it unacceptable that Uhrlau, the BND president, had not informed the German

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The German Constitutional Court published on 27 February 2008 a landmark ruling about the constitutionality of secret online searches of computers by government agencies. The decision constitutes a new "basic right to the confidentiality and integrity of information-technological systems" as derived from the German Constitution.

The journalist and privacy activist Bettina Winsemann, the politician Fabian Brettel (Left Party), the lawyer and former federal minister for the interior Gerhart Baum (Liberal Party), and the lawyers Julius Reiter and Peter Schantz had challenged the constitutionality of a December 2006 amendmend to the law about the domestic intelligence service of the

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Privacy and data protection seems not to be a hot topic for the Romanian society. The media is generally ignoring the topic, unless something related to an important public figure is making the subject out of the ordinary. The Romanian Data Protection Authority has failed in becoming a privacy public supporter and has rather emerged as a data protection controller's register. Under these general circumstances, 2007 was rather a calm year, where the main success of the government in the field of privacy - the non-adoption of the data retention law - was obtained by mistake only due to bureaucratic reasons.

a. Data retention

The first draft of the data retention law that needs to implement the EU

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

A Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act proposed by the US Administration was passed by the US Congress on 4 August 2007 allowing US intelligence services to intercept electronic communications between US, but also non-US citizens, if the communication passes across US-based networks, without needing a court order.

A written question was addressed to the European Commission and the Council by MEP Sophie In't Veld and Graham Watson from ALDE (Liberal group in the European Parliament) raising concerns on the US act which they consider as a violation of the privacy and civil rights of EU citizens. The questions refer to the level of protection of the EU citizens' personal data that the

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The Slovenian intelligence agency (SOVA) is monitoring telecommunications in the Balkans in cooperation with German BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) and UK's MI5. Some believe that the recently disclosed secret location in the Slovenian capital could be a part of Echelon.

The Slovenian intelligence agency is currently a part of a political scandal which has revealed some secret locations and methods that SOVA was using for intelligence purposes. Moreover, international credibility in SOVA and its agents is compromised, as the Slovenian press managed to obtain classified information regarding SOVA's secret financing, its company of straw and its international cooperation with other intelligence agencies.

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The German government has approved the draft legislation that implements the data retention directive, but the political opposition and the growing anti-surveillance movement shows an important resistance to the new plans of the federal Minister for the interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, who wants an ever increased surveillance.

The draft bill adopted by the German Government on 18 April 2007, was called by the Minister of Justice, Brigitte Zypries, "reasonable and constitutional." But the adopted draft expands what was initially proposed by Zypres, making traffic data accessible not only for criminal prosecution purposes, but also in order to "prevent considerable dangers" and "fulfil the legal duties" of all security police. Zypries also stated

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The Welsh Government, through Carmarthenshire College, was found in breach of human rights by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for having monitored one of the college employee's e-mails, internet traffic and telephone calls.

As the College is publicly funded, Lynette Copland sued the government for infringing Art.8 of the European Convention on Human Rights that says "everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence".

The government argued that the monitoring was carried out in order to establish whether Copland had extensively used college resources for personal communication, but the court ruled that: "The court is not

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Mikael Odenberg, the Swedish defence minister presented on 8 March 2007 a draft law to the parliament that would give the national defence intelligence agency the power to monitor all cross-border phone calls and email traffic without court order.

The proposal, which according to the government, is meant to combat terrorism and other threats to national security, would allow the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) to use computer software to search for sensitive keywords in all cross-border phone and e-mail communications.

Although the Government states that this would affect only a small part of the electronic communications and that communication exchanged between

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

As a result of the scandal related to the wiretapping of phone conversations of several Greek officials, including Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, during the period August 2004 – March 2005, Vodafone was fined by the Greek privacy committee for not having protected its network against hacking activities.

The Greek Prime Minister, other ministers, top military officials, human rights activists, the police, army and intelligence heads, journalists and lawyers were illegally monitored for almost a year by unknown hackers through the Vodafone network. The action was discovered in March 2005 but the hackers behind the wiretapping have not been discovered.

Vodafone was blamed by the Hellenic Authority for the Information and

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Earlier this year, Ingo Wolf, the Minister of the Interior of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Federal Minister, proposed certain plans that would give the police and the Interior Federal Office of Criminal Investigation permission to access online computers of the German citizens of as a measure of internal security. The plans have been were recently criticized by Germany's Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar.

In August, Mr. Wolf proposed a draft bill for a new Protection of the Constitution Act giving the Office for the Protection of the Constitution undercover access to "hard disks" and other "information technology systems"