At a stroke, the police surveillance co-operation system on football hooligans, set up in 1996 for the European football championships, has been extended to a range of other legal activities, both political and social, which involve people moving from one EU member state to another. Such internal security plans invite the surveillance of groups which intend to cross borders to join a demonstration on a new road or a nuclear power station, or to attend a rock concert. Targeted individuals and groups will be listed on the Schengen Information System, the Europe-wide computerised database available to all police, immigration and border officials. The Schengen database has already been criticised by civil liberties groups for including information on individuals and groups supplied by a third country - except when 'it has clearly been obtained by a third state in obvious violation of human rights'. It has the potential adversely to affect the status quo,' says the British proposal, prepared for the EU's public order co-operation group of police chiefs and senior officials.
Crime is well recognised and understood.
But disorder, which ranges from domestic disputes to lethal rioting, has been largely ignored. The UK has found that football hooliganism is symptomatic of a much wider problem. The EU joint home affairs council, chaired by the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, and composed of his fellow EU interior ministers, agreed without debate on May 26 on a programme of 'joint action with regard to co-operation on law and order and security'. The agreement is a direct result of Britain's tenure of the EU presidency in the first half of this year, but, unlike other British initiatives in Europe, was not publicised. The text and the British proposals that led to it will be released this week in the first issue of Statewatch's publication European Monitor, which has used EU transparency rules to obtain official documents.