Thread: European police get access to your DNA

Our country seems to be leading /joining/following the European governments/The UN into this ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT> I don't quite understand all this ...but I know its not good. Maybe someone who understands this can explain it... this is a long article but it shows how tied in we are already....

World news
http://aolsearcht9.search.aol.com/aol/s ... r&ie=UTF-8

European police get access to your DNA
by JAMES SLACK - More by this author »
Last updated at 15:21pm on 14th June 2007

Police across the European Union are to be given free access to the DNA of four million Britons, a million of whom are innocent, it has emerged.

Every member state will also be granted access to millions of fingerprints, as well as vehicle and driver registrations.

A two-year agreement on cross-border co- operation between seven EU countries now becomes law involving all 27 nations.

The Tories said the so-called "Prum Convention" was a "sell-out", as many of the controversial proposals were salvaged from the wreckage of the EU constitution.

They added that the deal - signed by Home Office Minister Joan Ryan in Luxembourg - also paves the way for police from different EU states to set-up joint patrols.

London MEP Syed Kamall said: "We are sleepwalking into a Big Brother Europe while our government stands idly by."

Britain receives by far the worst deal of the member states.

More than 4.2million people are contained on our database, or 7 per cent of the population. It includes a million innocent people, who were arrested but never charged and 100,000 children.

The database is 50 times the size of its French equivalent. In Austria, less than 1 per cent of the population is included.

Coverage in Germany is half of that. The EU average is to have around half a per cent of the population's DNA stored.

Searches for DNA profiles will be carried out on a "hit, no hit basis" by the 27 member states - which include Romania and Bulgaria.

Police officers will get a simple "yes, there is a match or no, there is not" answer.

If there is a match, there will be a fast-track request system to get all the details.

Driver databases will be accessed online.

Tory European Parliament spokesman Philip Bradbourn said that much of what had been agreed was originally part of the EU constitution.

He added: "Mr Blair has started the constitution sell-out today. Now everyone's personal details can be sent to police throughout Europe because Britain did not wield the veto.

"This Prum treaty fundamentally goes against the rules of data protection and civil liberties that we have come to expect in Europe."
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis added: "This is a serious development which we strongly object to. It is typical of incompetent Home Office Ministers to give away powers like this without thinking through the consequences."

The Luxembourg meeting also rubber-stamped a deal to set-up a common database for visa applicants' pictures and fingerprints.

From mid 2009, it will store digitalised photos and fingerprints of up to 70 million people applying for visas across the EU.

One country would be able to know if someone had already been granted or denied a visa in another, and whether the person had overstayed their time in the EU.

The data will be stored for five years and police will be able to consult the database on a case-by-case basis.

The Prum Convention was originally signed in Prum, Germany, between Belgium. Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria.

Britain had an informal agreement to share DNA, and did so in around 5,000 cases with the Dutch last year, but no firm agreement was in place.

Home Office Minister Mrs Ryan said: "Criminals do not respect borders. It is therefore vitally important that our law enforcement authorities have the tools available to obtain information held by other EU countries as quickly as possible to help with the investigation and prevention of crime."

A Home Office spokesman insisted the deal would not give police from other EU countries unfettered access to national DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration files and that co-operation would still depend on mutual agreement.

The Government had also ensured that provisions on cross-border pursuit had been dropped, she said.

Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini described the deal as "a very important first step", and said he planned to extend co-operation even further in future.

EU counterterrorism: Evolving complexity

A slew of laws enacted outside of the EU legislative framework presents a tricky scenario for bringing them into accord and enacting counterterrorism measures.
By Brooks Tigner in Brussels for
ISN Security Watch (25/04/07)

Groups of national capitals in Europe have intermittently constructed legal agreements outside the EU's legislative framework since the 1980s to quickly push - or control - policy in ways not possible if subjected to the more laborious scrutiny of the Union's law-making procedures. Lately this trend has accelerated with extra-EU negotiated agreements on police and judicial cooperation now being rushed for wholesale absorption into the EU's framework.

Does this trend pose threats to public oversight and personal liberties as some argue? A good example of the procedure is the Prum Treaty signed by seven EU countries in 2005 to boost cross-border cooperation in information exchanges, counterterrorism, illegal immigration, joint police operations and other areas. Based on a December 2006 proposal by the European Commission, Prum is being pushed at lightning speed for conversion into EU law in June.

"There's no doubt that the extra-EU approach is efficient: Prum is moving from an extra-EU document to legal EU status within two years," Daniela Kietz said during a 17April debate here on EU counterterrorism policy organized by the European Policy Centre. "This approach is fine in the Benelux countries [Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg] and Germany where they've been working together in such a way for a long time, but most other member states don't have this experience."

Democratic risks and legislative short cuts

A researcher on EU integration at Munich-based think tank Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Kietz was dubious about the democratic credential of the outside-to-inside EU legislative short cut. "It was a core group of states setting the pace for the rest.

There was no parliamentary debate, no public discussion leading up to the framing of Prum. All national parliaments could do was to accept it or reject it," she said. Converting the Prum Treaty to EU law will increase the document's legitimacy only to a limited degree in her view. "The [EU's] German presidency is rushing this thing through the EU's machinery so fast that there's not much room for real debate and analysis.

The European Parliament will be consulted, but Prum's text really can't be changed for lack of time: It's been given three months to come up with an opinion. That's not enough time for MEPs to consult with their constituencies or with national parliaments."

While legal experts are divided about the democratic risks of this detour around the EU's legislative machinery, one thing is sure: National capitals are struggling to deal with the pace and volume of legislation they need to effectively fight terrorism and organized crime, the result of a previous division of law-making powers within the EU regarding homeland security that are seen by some now as absurd. The division lies between the EU's so-called First and Third Pillar responsibilities.

These cleave into those homeland security proposals initiated by the European Commission in the name of the 27 member states, that is, the First Pillar process, and those agreed upon on a strict inter-governmental basis by capitals within the EU's Council of Ministers. Each process follows wholly separate legislative procedures:
majority vote under the First Pillar, and unanimity under the Third.

While the former carries the force of "official" EU law, the latter is merely what it is: a legal marriage of convenience between sovereign governments.
Added to this near-incomprehensible structure are all the extra-Community instruments and treaties floating around the EU's legal boundaries. Some are children of the Third Pillar approach and some not, though they are all designed to make "Europe" work better. They include the 1985 Schengen Accord to abolish visa controls between its signatory members, the 1993 Europol Convention setting up the pan-European police organization and the Prum Treaty.

Evolution and operational impact

The operational impact of each of these instruments on homeland security in Europe - and their implications for privacy and data protection - has grown rapidly since the terrorist bombings of Madrid in March 2004. For instance, the Schengen Information System is morphing from its original function as a benign cross-border visa databank for facilitating frontier-free travel within Europe into a powerful investigative tool. Its databank is being substantially beefed up with biometric passport information and other personal data, and linked to national police, border patrol and customs authorities. Most EU countries have felt no option but to join the Schengen Accord. Indeed, while the Accord is still not an official EU treaty, its impact and funding are increasing EU in dimension. Europol is evolving the same way.

One frequent criticism is that the First-Third pillar split is confusing and virtually impossible to explain to the public. Another argues that the artificial division of power is unsuited for a continent of governments that must move quickly and uniformly against organized crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. Indeed, it may even be counter-productive since a hodge-podge of laws risks being unevenly applied across the 27 member states.

Of course, Big Brother

A final criticism is Orwellian: that Big Brother looms a step closer in Europe without proper scrutiny of laws that expand police and judicial powers. In a 10 April working document on the Prum Treaty, Fausto Correia, Portuguese MEP who sits on the Euro-Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, states that the treaty "was negotiated and adopted in a very non-transparent way and without serious democratic control." As Correia told the 17 April gathering, "Prum is not just another initiative in judicial cooperation. It is very ambitious, if not revolutionary, in its scope because it sets up joint investigative teams [between EU member states] with full operational powers."
In his view, Prum's absorption into EU law must be accompanied by measures to protect data privacy and personal liberties.
"I want access to DNA databases limited to investigative work only, with strict need-to-know criteria applied as well as a maximum period for retaining the data. Council officials acknowledge that the transformation of Prum and Europol is moving quickly but they bristle at suggestions that the Council is trampling on personal freedoms.â€

A "Friends of the Presidency" (FoP) group of experts from the member states plus the .... The US is already demanding - in secret meetings - access to ...www.statewatch.org/news/2006/dec/p-of-a-art.pdf

Statewatch
The]]"US Prum treaty" “principle of availabilityâ€

It is shocking to me that Europeans have mostly sat idly by and let this happen. Are they so demoralized and feel so far gone that they no longer can put up any resistance? I would really like to hear how Europeans view all this and to hear their thoughts on the EU.

We are maybe 10 years behind them - this is our future if we do not act now.

I agree with you Kate. Europe has become pretty much insignificant, due to the compliance of the sheep that live there.

The US has LOTS of people acting like sheep that are asleep. If it is allowed to continue, we (the US), will simply be a couple of paragraphs in the history books.

We can NOT allow this to happen. If the people can stay awake (they were woke up a few weeks back), THEN we can take this country back. However, a new season of dancing with the stars (and other drivel), is just around the corner, so the attention span of US sheeple will probably not be that long.

H.

Originally Posted by Kate

It is shocking to me that Europeans have mostly sat idly by and let this happen. Are they so demoralized and feel so far gone that they no longer can put up any resistance? I would really like to hear how Europeans view all this and to hear their thoughts on the EU.

We are maybe 10 years behind them - this is our future if we do not act now.

Try crossofstgeorge.net and go into their forum, I can get you a Scottish site all well if you like.

Originally Posted by Kate

It is shocking to me that Europeans have mostly sat idly by and let this happen. Are they so demoralized and feel so far gone that they no longer can put up any resistance? I would really like to hear how Europeans view all this and to hear their thoughts on the EU.

We are maybe 10 years behind them - this is our future if we do not act now.

Most Europeans are Socialist. This is perfectly acceptable to them.
We need to watch out because we are being inundated with this same mindset here.
Oh and welcoming all these newly arrived illegals, guess what they have that exact same mentality.

GUYS....IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S NOT ONLY THE EUEOPEANS.......IT'S US TOO

The negotiations on the Agreement were completed on 6 October 2006, and on that day the Council adopted a Decision authorising the Presidency to sign the new Agreement. [u]It was signed on behalf of the EU on 16 October, and on behalf of the United States by the Secretary of DHS on 19 October, from which date it applied “provisionallyâ€