BRITAIN: The European Union may have to accept an erosion of some civil liberties if citizens are to be protected from organised crime and terrorism, British home secretary Charles Clarke told the European Parliament yesterday.
Mr Clarke, who begins a two-day conference of EU justice and home affairs ministers this morning, is seeking support for plans to log and keep record of telephone calls, e-mail and internet use as a method of fighting terrorism.
He has also proposed extending biometric identification from passports to driving licences, most likely through the use of fingerprints. He is anxious to get member states to agree to the measures during the current British presidency of the EU.
Mr Clarke told the parliament the right to life outweighed concerns over invasion of privacy and if the courts failed to recognise this the European Convention of Human Rights may need to be changed.
In a reference to the London bombings of July, Mr Clarke said member states "have to give the same rights to those humans who want to travel without being blown up on an underground train".
He 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.
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.
In relation to the use of fingerprints on driving licences Mr Clarke said the EU has agreed that passports, visas and identity cards should include biometric data. He said the logical next step would be to include them in driving licences.
"If we are doing that for passports, for visas, for ID cards, shouldn't we also be doing that for driving licences and I think there is a good logic for that," Mr Clarke said.
He acknowledged the timescale for exchanging old licences for new permits with security features would be "enormous".
"[ But] it doesn't really matter what the timeframe is. What is important is that there is an end position which the European Union agrees that everybody is then working towards," he said.
Mr Clarke's stance was not welcomed by the parliament's Liberal Democrat and Green MEPs including Graham Watson, parliament's Liberal Democrat leader. Opponents have spoken of a legal challenge to any immediate deal among ministers over the coming days.
"Human rights are indivisible. Freedom and security are not alternatives, they go hand in hand ... Much as the public may dislike it, suspected terrorists have rights," he said.
Britain said yesterday it would table a UN resolution on terrorism ahead of the general assembly meeting next week, calling on nations not only to condemn terrorism but to act against its incitement at home.
"It is time we sent out a clear, unified message from the international community that it is no longer legitimate, not merely in terms of committing acts of terrorism but in terms of supporting or inciting it," said prime minister Tony Blair. - (Reuters)