statism watch

Stick a fork in Europe, it’s done. They just can’t wait to turn the EU into a police state. The ‘Home Office’ is the British version of the US’s Department of Homeland Security. In this country, we add just that little extra Orwellian twist and call it ‘Public Safety Canada’. The point is, it’s a federalization and merger of state and local police forces with the military and intelligence apparatus, and in a stunning parallel to the SS Reich Security Office Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich means ‘homeland’, you see) it represents a massive threat to your security and your liberty. This isn’t about terrorism. It’s about keeping the public in line as the economy contracts, employment dries up, and new wars for profit are launched.

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Bruno Waterfield, The Telegraph
October 4, 2009

Plans for an embryonic EU “Home Office” to organise intelligence sharing and lead the fight against terrorism and crime were agreed in secret talks last week, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

Acting under a little-noticed section of the Lisbon Treaty, officials set up a Standing Committee on Internal Security (Cosi) to implement what is effectively the the EU’s first ever internal security policy.

Under the plans, the scope of information available to law enforcement agencies and “public security organisations” would be extended from the sharing of DNA and fingerprint databases, kept and stored for new digital generation ID cards, to include CCTV footage and material gathered from internet surveillance.

Cosi will coordinate policy between national forces and EU organisations such as Europol, the Frontex borders agency, the European Gendarmerie Force and the Brussels intelligence sharing Joint Situation Centre, under measures known as the “Stockholm programme“. It will sharply step up collaboration among member states’ police forces.

The new commitee echoes similar moves a decade ago which led to the fully-fledged EU diplomatic service, now enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty, with an EU equivalent of the Foreign Secretary.

Critics fear that Cosi – whose establishment was agreed by national ambassadors to the EU, meeting in private – will eventually also evolve into a full-scale Home Office for the EU, with authority over member states’ police and security services.

Tony Bunyan, of the European Civil Liberties Network, warned that Cosi was a step towards an eventual “EU Home Office or interior ministry without any democratic control”. He added: “It is outrageous that the role of the new EU internal security committee has been decided in secret. If Cosi becomes a high-level legislative body, as well being in charge of operational matters, a whole swathe of decision-making and practice will be removed from democratic debate.”

The treaty states: “A standing committee shall be set up within the Council in order to ensure that operational cooperation on internal security is promoted and strengthened within the Union.” Insiders say that this was left intentionally vague.

An official involved in talks said: “Sometimes it is better not to spell things out too much in order to keep flexibility and to allow officials, in this case senior police and security people, the creativity of a blank slate.”

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under globalization, militarization, police, sovereignty, surveillance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.