EU Security Proposals Are "Dangerously Authoritarian"

[Seashore]

This is the headline for an article on the Telegraph website.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

The European Union is stepping up efforts to build an enhanced pan-European system of security and surveillance which critics have described as “dangerously authoritarian.”

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Published: 4:32PM BST 10 Jun 2009

Civil liberties groups say the proposals would create an EU ID card register, internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry border systems operated by machines reading biometrics and risk profiling systems.

Europe's justice ministers will hold talks on the "domestic security policy" and surveillance network proposals, known in Brussels circles as the "Stockholm programme," on July 15 with the aim of finishing work on the EU's first ever internal security policy by the end of 2009.

Jacques Barrot, the European justice and security commissioner, yesterday publicly declared that the aim was to "develop a domestic security strategy for the EU," once regarded as a strictly national "home affairs" area of policy.

...EU officials have told The Daily Telegraph that the radical plans will be controversial and will need powers contained within the Lisbon Treaty, currently awaiting a second Irish vote this autumn.

"The British and some others will not like it as it moves policy to the EU," said an official. "Some of things we want to do will only be realistic with the Lisbon Treaty in place, so we need that too."