Independent Perspective News

By WARREN HOGE

European governments have reacted to the terrorist attacks in the United States by proposing new laws that are in many cases tougher and more restrictive than the ones they instituted in response to terrorism at home.

In rapid succession, France has expanded police powers to search private property without warrants, Spain has curbed organizations associated with the Basque guerrilla group E.T.A., and the European Council has moved to create a pan-European arrest warrant and a common definition of "terrorist crime."

Even in Germany, where citizens' experiences with Nazism and Communism have left them particularly sensitive to state intrusion into private lives, the government has loosened restraints on phone tapping and the monitoring of e-mail and bank records and freed up once-proscribed communication between the police and the secret services.

The debate over restricting civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism has not been as heated in Europe as in the United States, where the measures have been more drastic. But the tightening up since Sept. 11 in countries that have faced terrorist bombings and assassinations continually over the last three decades has provoked argument.

"Collective security is not the enemy of individual freedom," said France's interior minister, Daniel Valliant, in introducing antiterrorism legislation in the French assembly last month. "The scale of the attacks on the U.S. and the way they were carried out has made us aware that no one is safe from such terrorist acts." He said, "We now speak in terms of before and after Sept. 11."

France has proposed new laws to bolster security in public places and to allow the police to search cars without warrants, an issue of particular sensitivity for the French. Under pre-existing laws, cars were classed as "private places" in France, and the police did not have the right to intrude.

"My reaction is very critical," said Dominique Tricaud, a human rights lawyer who works with S O S Racisme, a French civil rights group. "Sept. 11 has done nothing to change the French strategy for fighting terrorism. It was already in place because of the terror bombs in the 1980's and 1990's. There was no need for fresh measures."

Security officials disagree. Mariano Roy, Spain's interior minister, said, "In these 50 days we have advanced more in the struggle against terrorism than in the last decade."

Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily, who as a lawyer used to represent terror suspects, has proposed loosening restrictions on surveillance, in effect giving investigators the right to pry without any stated suspicion.

When the European Council in Brussels pursued its legislation, a group of high- profile lawyers, judges and legal scholars from six countries put out a lengthy statement condemning the initiative. "Democratic rights should not become the collateral damage of the war against terrorism," the 70 signers said, claiming that the proposed law "assassinates freedom." The legislation is aimed at setting a common definition of terrorism, increasing cooperation among national security forces and harmonizing punishments. The petition claimed that the legislation risked criminalizing protests like sit-ins, strikes, and other exercises of fundamental rights. Germany has reintroduced the practice of computer profiling — the search of both public and private records for patterns to help find suspects — that was last seen when it was fighting its Red Army Faction terrorists in the 1970's.

But the new profiling is far more extensive because of advanced software and the wider array of records now open to scrutiny. In the past, the targets were people screened for information like age, family and academic associations. Now, critics charge, the primary criteria will be race, religion and nationality.

"The principle of protecting the people's personal data must not stand in the way of fighting crime and terrorism," said Mr. Schily, who made his name as the primary defense lawyer of the Red Army Faction leaders. His embrace of a law- and-order agenda has earned him the nickname of "Red Sheriff" in the German press.

Joachim Jacob, the federal commissioner for data protection, said he was worried about the planned unrestricted access to the registry of foreigners. "This was not meant to be a police or intelligence registry," he said. In a statement to Parliament, he objected to the proposed opening to police scrutiny of medical and psychological information from insurance companies, hospitals and social and youth agencies. "I am urgently pleading for a limit," he told the legislators. "At the very least the data with underlying confidentiality should be ruled out of bounds."

In Spain, the government has cited the antiterror war as reason to curb organizations associated with the Basque independence movement, E.T.A., which has killed more than 800 people in its 30-year struggle. At home this has meant a legislative campaign against Herri Batasuna, the party considered E.T.A.'s political wing. Abroad, it has meant persuading European Union partners and the United States to declare Herri Batasuna a terrorist organization. Although a significant and vocal minority in Spain opposes the war in Afghanistan, there has been little public dissent from the government's stand on the E.T.A. guerrillas. Among the few critics of the crackdown was the rival Basque Nationalist Party, which does not espouse violence. "One should not outlaw a political party," said the nationalists' leader, Xabier Arzalluz. "That is like outlawing ideas."

Britain has gone further than any other country in Europe with a new antiterror bill that among other things gives prosecutors the right to detain indefinitely and without trial foreigners suspected of terrorist links. To do so, Britain had to invoke an article of the European Convention on Human Rights allowing countries to opt out of restrictions on such detentions. The other 14 European Union nations continue to require that a person must either be charged with a crime or released.

Home Secretary David Blunkett's push to get the bill through Parliament by Christmas prompted The Independent, a daily with a liberal editorial stance, to suggest that the lawmakers might want to take a little more time to contemplate the removal of a right that can be traced back to an article of the Magna Carta in 1215 and was codified in the Habeas Corpus Act of 1640.

Mr. Blunkett told doubters this week that public opinion was on his side and that he would make only limited concessions while pushing for passage of the antiterrorism legislation by Christmas. One concession was an agreement that provisions for the indefinite detention of suspected foreign terrorists without trial would require renewal after five years. He also offered to include a similar two-year renewal clause in the new regulation requiring Internet companies to retain data for possible disclosure to the police.

Mr. Blunkett's claim of support was borne out in a survey of 1,000 people in the European Union's 15 member states that showed that the British were more supportive of their government's handling of the situation than respondents in the other nations.