Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-09-15-Speech-3-029"
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"en.19990915.3.3-029"2
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"Madam President, democracy demands that we take decisions through a system of majority ruling. Democracy also demands that people have fundamental rights, which may not be violated by means of majority ruling. Such violations must be prevented in a constitutionally governed state. Privacy is a human right that cannot be abolished with an EU directive, a convention or national legislation. There is legal provision for the protection of privacy in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Representing the Council, Mrs Halonen said that it was necessary to identify certain new types of crime that had come into existence. But then it is necessary to recognise the existence also of crimes relating to the violation of people’s privacy, which intelligence agencies in the USA and the EU countries are guilty of 24 hours a day. I speak of electronic surveillance. In the European judicial area, prevention of this type of crime seems still not to be the object of political and parliamentary preparatory action or control, and merely takes the form of police co-operation. There are types of crime that remain outside the democratic system, which the preparation of the Enfopol 19 document is connected with. There are undemocratic issues that are connected with the so-called Ilets police co-operation. Undemocratic too is the Echelon programme for collaboration on espionage and the bilateral agreements between the security services in the USA and the EU countries. It is also a crime that American computer manufacturers and software companies install special ID codes in their products. It is a crime against people’s privacy, in addition to which it jeopardises the security of European states.
We have to fight against such things and crimes of this type with transparency and by drawing public attention to them. I hope that Finland will move from words to deeds in this issue. At present, there is no visible prospect of an increase in transparency and public awareness during the Finnish presidential term: they only speak about it."@en1
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