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PRESS RELEASE
Brussels, 23 February 2000

Appalling facts exposed in Echelon Hearing in the European Parliament

Greens/EFA call for Inquiry Committee on Echelon

The Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament today called for setting up a parliamentary inquiry committee to clarify in which way the interception system Echelon has damaged the interests of the European Union and its member states.

"Echelon, an completely uncontrolled and illegal spying system run by the USA, the UK and several other countries, poses a clear threat to civil liberties and the EU economy," said Paul Lannoye, Co-President of the Green/EFA Group, today after a hearing on the interception of telecommunications in the Civil Liberties and Legal Affairs Committee of the EP ( http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg2/hearings/20000222/libe/en/default.htm ). "It is shocking that after the end of the Cold War the USA and its allies turned their high-tech spying systems against the European member states."

The Greens/EFA Group will now start to collect the 160 signatures necessary to set up such an inquiry committee. Following a Green/EFA initiative, Council and the Commission will also give a declaration on Echelon in the plenary on 30th March (mini-session) in Brussels. "EU Commissioner Frits Bolkestein will have to explain himself why he is still denying the mere existence of Echelon. Either the Commissioner is uninformed, because the existence of Echelon has already been proven or he is playing a smoke screen game," said Lannoye.

"It is very worrying, that one of the EU member states - the United Kingdom - is actively involved in running this espionage system against its own partners," said Heidi Hautala, Co-President of the Green/EFA Group. "The United Kingdom has to choose to which community of values it wants to belong to. The one which gives free hands to uncontrolled interception of the communications of its citizens, or the one which is based on the respect of fundamental and data protection rights."

"The Europeans should rapidly develop their own technology and encryption systems to defend themselves against the attacks which are conducted in the name of the universal security interests of the USA," Hautala added. "In this context we are looking forward to the proposals by the Commissioner responsible for information technology, Erkki Liikanen."


Press Service of the Greens/EFA Group
in the European Parliament

Helmut Weixler (press officer)

*
EUROPEAN FEDERATION OF GREEN PARTIES
European Parliament - room PHS 2C85
rue Wiertz, 1047 Brussels, Belgium
ph: 32 2 284 51 35, fax : 32 2 284 91 35

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