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Deutsch: Österreich: Parlament ignoriert Bürgerinitiative zur Vorratsdatenspe...

The Austrian Working Group on Data Retention counters the lack of responsiveness to citizens' political participation with even more participation.

Albeit gaining support of over 100 000 citizens, the Austrian citizens' petition against data retention has been deferred to the Parliament Justice Committee by the Petition Committee. The Austrian working group on data retention (AKVorrat.at) has decided to change pace in the campaign and asks its supporters to contact the representatives in the justice committee, to ensure that their concerns are taken seriously.

In October 2011, the Austrian working group on data retention (AKVorrat.at) started a petition, called citizens' initiative, asking the Austrian government to oppose the EU data retention directive and to evaluate all laws created with the aim to fight terrorism. In December, the initiative was passed to the Parliament with more than 4400 supporters. Since mid-December the initiative could be signed online and reached a total of 106 067 supporters until 30 May 2012.

The Petition Committee of the Austrian Parliament dealt with the issue twice: in March and on 30 May 2012. Both times their schedule allowed only less than 5 minutes to deal with the initiative and its consequences.

In March 2012, the Committee decided to ask three ministries (Justice, Interior and Infrastructure) as well as the Chancellor's office for statements. All ministries' statements clearly missed the point by stating that Austria had to implement data retention because of the Data Retention Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council. These statements are quite surprising as one of the key demands of the initiative is that the Austrian government should act within the European Union to abolish the Data Retention Directive. The other main demand - the evaluation of laws designed to fight terrorism - was completely ignored.

In the second meeting, there was no reaction to the statements and the initiative was passed on to the Justice Committee.

AKVorrat.at reacted quickly: "After being astonished initially by the brief treatment in the petition committee a new campaign was kicked off. Since the citizens' initiative can no longer be signed the new campaign asks all the supporters to contact the representatives in the justice committee to ensure proper treatment of the demands supported by more than 100,000 citizens. To date it is unclear how and when the initiative will be discussed in the committee. Nevertheless, the activists of AKVorrat.at are determined to maintain data retention as one of the hot topics in Austrian politics."

Austrian Parliament - Citizens' initiative - Stop Data retention (only in German)
http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/BI/BI_00037/index.shtml

AK Vorrat Austria campaign against data retention (only in German)
https://zeichnemit.at

(Contribution by AK Vorrat - Austria)