Enlarge imageBy Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) - European Union states may have to accept an erosion of some individual civil liberties if their citizens are to be protected from organised crime and terrorist attacks, Home Secretary Charles Clarke said on Wednesday.
Speaking as Britain holds the rotating presidency of the EU, Clarke said the right to life outweighed concerns over invasion of privacy and warned judges in European courts that if they failed to recognise this the European Convention of Human Rights may need to be changed.
"It seems to me we have to give the same rights to those humans who want to travel without being blown up on an underground train," Clarke told reporters.
"If the judges don’t understand that message and don’t take decisions which reflect where the people of the continent want to be, then the conclusion will be that politicians ... will be saying we have got to have a change in this regime."
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Clarke hosts a two-day meeting of justice and home affairs ministers from the EU’s 25 states starting on Thursday when they will discuss proposals to log telephone calls, email and Internet use to help police track down terrorists.
Ministers will also meet industry and law enforcement officials to find a way to reconcile concerns about the costs of the proposed measures with industry sources in Germany saying the costs could run into hundreds of millions of euro.
Since al Qaeda attacked New York in 2001, bombers have hit transport systems in two European capitals, killing 191 commuters in Madrid last year and 52 in London last July.
"THE RIGHT NOT TO BE BLOWN UP"
Clarke said there was an impression the EU was not doing enough to tackle some of its citizens’ main concerns over serious organised crime, illegal immigration and terrorism.
"One of the reasons for the ’no’ vote in France and Holland to the new European Constitution was that there is not a strong enough sense the EU is addressing these issues," said Clarke, who addresses the European Parliament later on Wednesday.
Clarke said Britain’s presidency would seek to redress the balance between an individual’s rights and national security by giving authorities more access to information for intelligence.
He said law-enforcement agencies needed surveillance cameras, passports and visas should include internationally consistent biometric data, and phone companies should retain details of all calls made for a year, including unanswered ones.
"I say the doubts about civil liberties of a person who’s being photographed on a CCTV camera ... or a person who has made a phone call to another person are small civil liberties in comparison with the overall civil liberty of the right not to be blown up," he said.
Clarke’s comments reflect a frustration felt by his government that the rights of suspects and defendants, backed by UK courts, were hindering the fight against terrorism and were taking precedence over the rights of ordinary citizens.
"The judges both in my country and in the European Court need to understand that the people of Europe ... will not for a long time accept that action cannot be taken against people who are offering a real threat to our way of life because of human rights considerations," he said.
Following the July 7 deadly suicide bomb attacks on the London transport system EU governments agreed to speed up plans to log phone, email and Internet use.
That sparked a row with the executive European Commission and the European Parliament, some of whose members have vowed to haul governments before the European Court of Justice.
(Additional reporting by Marie-Louise Moller in Brussels)
