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Campaign to exercise the right to access European databases

Reclaim your data from the European police authorities!

Aufruf auch in deutsch

Throughout Europe, the data of millions of people is stored in
information systems operated and checked by the police and and
intelligence services as a matter of course. The various national
systems are supplemented by centralized databases such as the Schengen
Information System (SIS) and databases
operated by Europol. In addition, the Treaty of Prüm and the “Swedish
Initiative” has led to increasing automation and facilitate rapid data
exchange between national systems.

We are no longer talking only about persons convicted for criminal
offences. Immigrants are regularly entered in these databases – for
having committed the “crime” trying to enter in a European country
without obtaining prior permission, for wishing to make use of their
right of asylum, or even for simply being a guest for a longer period
in a European Union member state. But it is not just immigrants either.
EU citizens are finding themselves entered in data retention systems
for something as simple as, for example, being caught up in an ID check
at a political demonstration or as a result of being ordered by the
police to vacate a premises.

Activist meeting against the “European security architecture”

Out of Control!

19-22 November 2009, Southern Germany

European security politics of the last twenty years has increased
the potency of social and state control in a prodigious manner. New
technologies, legislations, techniques and doctrines were established
in the middle of the judicial, police and military apparatuses. The
forces of control are merging, while the fronts of struggle are
multiplicated.

Conflicts did not miss of course. From popular neighbourhoods to
video surveillance, “border management” and "e-borders“, databases,
control of telecommunication, new DNA or
biometric technologies, satellites and flying cameras, blocking of
websites, repression of militants, migrants, “crowd control” at summit
protests or alternative cultures as the free parties, the hold of state
control stretched.

Call for Summer of Resistance‭ ‬2009‭

Collapse the security architectures‭!
Against NATO, G20, G8, Frontex and the “Stockholm Programme”!

Since the end of the last millennium a modification of the‭
“‬security architecture‭” ‬within the EU takes place,‭ ‬which have been
accelerated by the attacks of‭ ‬11‭ ‬September‭ ‬2001‭ ‬in the United
States.‭ ‬Visible phenomena are for example the entanglement of
internal and external security,‭ ‬a‭ “‬pooling‭” ‬of prosecution
authorities and intelligence sevices and a simplified data exchange.‭
‬At the technical level we are confronted with new digital surveillance
cameras,‭ ‬satellite surveillance,‭ ‬biometrics,‭ ‬drones,‭ ‬software
for intelligent search in databases and new broadband networks to
manage this huge flood of digital data.‭
‬New institutions and authorities have been created,‭ ‬including the‭ “‬European Police Office Europol,‭ ‬the police academy CEPOL,‭
‬the border agency Frontex and the‭” ‬Committee for the Management of
Operational Cooperation‭ " ‬of all police agencies of the EU within its
intelligence operation assessment center.

Shut down the Stockholm Programe – No Future for the “Future Group”!

Following Tampere 1999 and Hague 2004, the EU plans to decide the next five-year plan on “Justice and Home Affairs” (JHA) this year.

After the implementation of data retention and new databases, the
creation of “Frontex” and the “European Security Research Programme” ,
the “harmonization” of terrorism laws and more surveillance of the
internet, next severe changes are foreseen to bet set in the new
guideline.

Under swedish EU presidency in the second half of 2009, probably in
November or December, the ministers of interior and justice will meet
to agree the new “Stockholm Programme”.

A self-announced “Future Group” of some of the ministers, initiated
under german EU presidency 2007, already published the wishlist
“European Home Affairs in an open world”:

An EU population register, ‘remote’ forensic searches of computer
hard drives, internet surveillance systems, more implementation of
satellites and ‘drone’ planes for surveillance, automated exit-entry
systems operated by machines, autonomous targeting systems, risk
assessment and profiling systems, e-borders, passenger profiling
systems, an EU ‘entry-exit’ system, joint EU expulsion flights,
dedicated EU expulsion planes, EU-funded detention centres and refugee
camps in third countries (even “overseas”), expansion of the
para-military European Gendarmerie Force, deployment of EU Battle
Groups, crisis management operations in Africa, permanent EU military
patrols in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, more power for EU agencies,
interlinking of national police systems, an EU criminal record, a
permanent EU Standing Committee on internal security (COSI) dealing with operational matters, more partnerships with the security industry.

Anti-NATO protest — Proposal for an action day against the “European security architecture”

NATO
is planning to host their annual conference next year in France and
Germany in the cities of Strasbourg and Baden-Baden. While the summit
itself will take place in Strasbourg, the “working dinners” of the
ministers of defence will be held in Baden-Baden, Germany, between
Karlsruhe and Kehl, around 50 kilometres from Strasbourg.

The summit will celebrate the 60th anniversary of this war alliance,
when the member states will discuss NATO’s new strategic direction. As
in 1999 large changes are planned.

In a strategy paper published in April 2007, five former generals
stress the need for a more “proactive approach”, in which the
preemption and prevention of threats are central. To the NATO
strategists an array of threats exist in today’s uncertain world, from
terrorism and transnational crime to unrests following food crises,
social conflicts as a result of climate change and extensive migration
to the countries of the NATO alliance. These
are all central security risks that fall within NATO’s remit. The paper
maintains that proper “defence” requires the concept of “homeland
security”, which entails a “comprehensive approach” of the military,
police, politics, research, academics and civil society and the
continued blurring of internal and external security to build up a
“global security architecture”.

Block the Vichy European Summit on Immigration, November 3-4 2008!

On the next November 3rd and 4th , the French presidency of the
European Union will gather, upon the initiative of Brice Hortefeux,
French minister of immigration, integration and national identity, the
whole 27 European ministers of Interior and Justice. They will all meet
in Vichy, the historic capital of the pro-Nazi regime in France during
the Second World War, where deportation of the Jews, along with other
“undesirable” people, was orchestrated by the government.

Today, the european ministers will attempt to firmly discuss on the control on the
fluxes of immigrant workers and the application of the (in)famous
« return directive », that facilitates the deportation of migrants at
European level.

We cannot let this provocation happen without an answer. In a time where
people without a status are answering to government chases by burning
retention centers at many places in Europe, it’s a minimal task for
those who support them to disrupt this gathering of ministers.