Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2014-04-16-Speech-3-110-141"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20140416.131.3-110-141"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, the Court judgment is a landmark one for data protection and privacy law in the EU and, undoubtedly, beyond. It sets limits on what is acceptable in the restrictions on liberty in the pursuit of security. We have been debating this for the entire time – the 15 years – that I have been in Parliament, and it has got more complex in an era of online data and communication.
As a Liberal Democrat and member of the ALDE Group, I strongly opposed the proposed directive in 2005, in line with the recommendations of my ALDE colleague and the rapporteur, Alex Alvaro. It was – as my colleague Sophia[nbsp ]in ʼt Veld has said – a classic example of policy-laundering, not least by the then President of the Council. The UK was in the Presidency, and the person who pushed this through was the then UK Home Secretary from the Labour Party, Charles Clarke. They had been unable to get through a mandatory data retention scheme in the Westminster Parliament, so there was no British law to this effect. So what happens? It gets pushed through the Brussels system with the connivance of the Socialist and PPE Groups. It was an appalling example of policy-laundering.
The ruling by the EU’s highest court – that bulk storage of metadata on every single person’s communications is an unjustified and disproportionate invasion of privacy and a breach of human rights – is a vindication of the stance that we took in 2005. Member States must indeed urgently review national implementing legislation to ensure full compliance with the ruling. If they do not, I am sure that national courts will do so. Governments certainly need to be able to protect their citizens from serious crime and terrorism, but the knee-jerk resort to mass data collection – with no basis in suspicion – is utterly disproportionate. This is the significance of what the Court has said. The gross encroachment of our rights through the mass collection of data and snooping on our citizens, coupled with unaccountable surveillance with insufficient oversight, cannot simply be justified in the name of the fight against serious crime and terrorism. You cannot just invoke ‘we’re fighting criminals and terrorists’ to justify disproportionate restrictions on freedoms. I note that the Court specifically criticised the lack of a requirement for a court order before the retained data could be accessed.
So the Court has unequivocally upheld fundamental rights to data protection and privacy as a shield against indiscriminate blanket retention of data. It throws a real spanner in the works of increased data collection and, hopefully, marks the end of a decade and a half where surveillance overkill has been the name of the game. I am looking forward to seeing what the implications for the PNR and the SWIFT agreements are.
I believe we can be proud of the work that Parliament has done in this area, leading to the questioning and investigating of mass surveillance practices – not least by Mr Moraes, who has redeemed himself for his vote in 2005. We are demanding answers to difficult questions and ..."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples