The computer systems at Europe's disposal make Orwell's 1984 sound like an innocent fairy-tale. The scariest thing is that Europol's jurisdiction is international and the force is only accountable to itself. It is a monster which, moreover, in good European tradition, has been conceived and developed in extreme secrecy and, of course, without the European population having a say in the matter. No need to expand on this one. In the glorious Amsterdam Treaty, the European leaders have simply abolished the possibility of Europeans seeking political asylum within Europe.
All governments consider themselves and their countries models of democracy.
Meanwhile, in France and Spain, hundreds of Basques suspected of ETA membership are deliberately detained thousands of kilometers from their families even as human rights commissions talk of Spanish government death squads and the systematic torture of prisoners. But even countries such as Italy, Germany, the UK and Greece often persecute political radicals. The French secret service committed an assault on a Greenpeace ship, in Italy a mass court case against some 70 anarchists is entering its second year, in Germany the editors of some leftist magazines are persecuted, in the UK the same is happening to the editors of radical ecological magazines while in Greece the right to conscientious objection does not even exist and draft dodgers spend years in jail. Plenty of examples, which unfortunately rarely if ever make it into the media and thus remain invisible. The Amsterdam Treaty makes life even easier for them.