Foreign News: NEW EU GESTAPO TO SPY ON EVERYONE

Title:   NEW EU GESTAPO TO SPY ON EVERYONE
http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=2417   Ireland
By:    Simon Murphy Sovereign Independent


Date:   03/27/2010

A new European intelligence agency Europol has been handed frightening powers to pry into everyone lives. The agency of the EU can access information on everyone and anyone including their political opinions and sexual preferences if it suspects, rightly or wrongly, that they may be involved in any “preparatory act” which could lead to criminal activity.


I’m sure some will say that calling Europol the Gestapo is unrealistic and over the top but if you consider that during the reign of the Nazi’s they would have to infiltrate Social Democratic and Communist opposition where as today the powers that be can sit in an office performing information gathering using phone tapping, email and internet usage, are Europol not a worse treath to our freedoms?

The vagueness of the Hague-based force’s remit sparked furious protests in the UK yesterday with critics warning that the EU snoopers threaten our right to free speech. It is understood the agency will concentrate on anyone thought “xenophobic” or likely to commit a crime involving the environment, computers or motor vehicles.

Europol Spying

This could include covert monitoring of people who deny the existence of climate change or speak out on controversial issues.

Paul Nuttall, chairman of the UK Independence Party, said: “I am horrified. We thought Gordon Brown’s Big Brother state was bad enough but at least we are going to kick him out in May. These guys we cannot sack until we leave the EU.”

James Welch, legal director of campaign group Liberty, said: “We have huge concerns that Europol appears to have been given powers to hold very sensitive information and to investigate matters that aren’t even crimes in this country. Any extension of police powers at any level needs to be properly debated and scrutinised.”

Until January 1, Europol was a police office funded by various states to help tackle international organised crime. But it has been reborn as the official criminal intelligence-gathering arm of the EU and Brussels has vastly increased its powers.

As if these new powers for europol were not bad enough the UK government are planning to bring in a new new snooper’s census for next year. The 2011 survey will demand to know how many bedrooms there are in homes and detailed information about any ‘overnight visitors’.

Other new questions will include how well respondents can speak English, whether they have a second home, what kind of central heating they have installed, how they define their national identity and whether they are in civil partnerships.

Census or Intrusion?

The specimen census asks ‘how would you describe your national identity?,’ offering English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, British or ‘other’, with space to add further details. The section on ethnic groups has also been expanded from 2001, with separate categories for ‘Gypsy or Irish Traveller’ and ‘Arab’ for the first time. It also asks: ‘How well can you speak English?… very well, well, not well or not at all.’

All this amounts to the government separating people into classes of ethnicity, colour and religion and one can’t help but wonder why? What’s next the step, tattooing of people so they can be easily identified on the street?

Anyone who fails to fill in the census face the threat of a criminal conviction and a £1,000 fine but despite this over 1 million people in the UK did not complete or return the 2001 census and it remains to be seen if stronger enforcement will come into play this time around.

By Simon Murphy Sovereign Independent

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