EU on Terrorism

Over the past couple of days, following the terrorist attacks in London, a number of ideas have been raised concerning fighting terrorism on a European scale. The European Union justice commissioner wants to record all our emails and telephone calls.

Mr Frattini said the proposal was "an extremely important initiative" and called the 12-month limit for telephone conversations and a six-month limit for internet data a "reasonable time."

Another group punishment for us all from the people who refuse to accept that the risk is confined to certain types of people. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown wants to hit them where it hurts:

Chancellor Gordon Brown is to urge EU finance ministers to step up efforts to seize the assets of "terrorist groups" in the wake of the London bombings.

He must be getting desperate for revenues. Considering that the London attacks were probably a shoestring operation, is he going to seize their Giros? That great European Graham Watson meanwhile, thinks he has already solved the problem:

In 2001 I piloted through the European Parliament a package of anti-terrorist legislation, including the European Arrest Warrant which entered into force this year.

But small mindedness has stopped us accepting the great man’s ideas.

Many national governments still shy away from co-operation that could help protect our citizens - particularly when it comes to the sharing of criminal intelligence. In the name of preserving national sovereignty they allow international anarchy free reign.

The Police are of course telling us that this is probably a home grown operation. How would the European Arrest warrant help exactly? Unless of course they insult religion, in which case Greece will probably want to extradite them. Notice the strange use of the word cooperation, meaning of course being forced to do something by EU legislation. Showing a full understanding of the menace we are facing, Europe’s as yet uncrowned foreign minister had this to say about another front in the conflict:

Solana pointed out that Israel has the right to defend itself but the fence which will stand outside the territory of Israel is not legally proper and it creates also humanitarian problems.

Unlike nail bombs which I suppose just cause traffic congestion? Why do I get the impression that EU cooperation on terrorism would be of great benefit to the terrorists? Perhaps its due to the fact that European Human Rights law, seems to be designed mainly to stop us from kicking out the very people who are a problem in the first place.