The renowned US civil rights organisation ACLU has sent out an alarming press release about FBI-surveillance of their activities and of other renowned peaceful groups such as Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice. The FBI has collected more than 1.100 pages of documents on the ACLU since 2001 and the ACLU is urging the court to order a rapid hand-over of these files, in stead of having to wait another 9 months for the FBI to 'process' the file. The ACLU is deeply concerned about the large-scale surveillance of political and religious groups in the name of fighting terrorism.

In December 2004 ACLU filed access requests to FBI-files on behalf of 7 national organisations and on behalf of more than 100 groups and individuals in 16 States. The ACLU received widespread complaints from students and political activists who said they were questioned by FBI agents in the months leading up to the 2004 political conventions. The people represented by ACLU include "advocates for causes including the environment, animal rights, labour, religion, Native American rights, fair trade, grassroots politics, peace, social justice, nuclear disarmament, human rights and civil liberties."

The US Transportation Security Administration is facing a scandal involving data being swapped forth and back with a private company engaged in data brokering.

As Associated Press reported, the TSA, which is an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security, is not only storing commercial data about domestic air passengers. It has also passed this data on to EagleForce Associate, a company based in Virginia and engaged in data mining. This company matched the data to other sets of data from different sources and burnt it on CDs, which were then sent back to the TSA. The authority reportedly used the CDs for testing terrorist watchlists. This practice concerns only domestic US flights.

But, as part of a deal with the Commission, the Department of Homeland Security is also receiving in advance data of EU passengers on transatlantic flights. The US have promised to treat this data according to EU data protection standards. The Commission has taken this promise as a sufficient guarantee that the data will be treated adequately, which is a legal condition for the data transfer to take place.

The Second Inter-sessional Intergovernmental Meeting on a Development Agenda took place in the WIPO Headquarters in Geneva from 20 to 22 June 2005. EDRI was represented this time by Ville Oksanen. He got two chances to address the meeting. EDRI stressed the importance of the creation of the independent WIPO Evaluation and Research Office as described in item Five based on the proposal by the Friends of the Development.

Oksanen said: "We strongly believe that all decision making should be based on the best scientific knowledge available. Only a totally independent unit, which uses the best practices of the science, can produce results which can be trusted by all stakeholders."

The meeting itself was a dissappointment. Instead of substantial discussion, the developed countries did their best to sidetrack the

From 6 to 8 July 2005 the leaders of the 8 richest industrial countries, the G8, will meet in Gleneagles, Scotland. This upcoming G8-summit has been in the media spotlight for debating solutions to the world poverty, but is equally important as a driving force of the surveillance society. According to an article in the Guardian the leaders will discuss a plan to exchange and bundle terrorism research, computer material and possibly DNA and fingerprint samples, "testing the limits of data protection and privacy laws". This proposal was prepared by a 3 day meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs ministers in Sheffield, UK from 16 to 18 June 2005.

Researcher Tom Blickmann from the Dutch Trans National Institute recently published a convincing analysis of the previous law enforcement activities

The US has signalled that it will modify its biometric passport requirements for travellers from Visa Waiver countries. EU countries have been struggling to meet an October 2005 deadline set by the US to introduce new passports with biometric identifiers.

The 2002 US Border Security Act demands from 27 countries the inclusion of chips with facial images in their passports, in order to continue participation in the US Visa Waiver programme. A deadline was set for 26 October 2004 after which citizens from most EU countries would either have to present a biometric passport or a visa to enter the US. In June 2004 the US House of Representatives agreed to a one-year extension until 26 October 2005.

But most EU countries will not be able to introduce passports with contactless chips by that time. Travellers from those countries would have to apply for visa if the US maintains its demands. This would result in a chilling effect on US tourism and commerce while overstressing the US consular system with visa applications. Governments on both sides of the ocean have been looking for an acceptable solution.

EDRI-member ISOC Bulgaria has sent an angry letter in May 2005 to the US Trade Representative about grave errors in their recent Special 301 Report.

The Bulgarian organisation defends the Bulgarian government for its attempts to solve the problems with the illegal usage of software, music and films. In the 5-page letter, also sent to the US Ambassador to Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Ambassador to the USA and to the Bulgarian minister of culture, ISOC-Bulgaria protests against the use of fake data in the report. Allegedly these data were provided by the Business Software Alliance through their Bulgarian representative.

The letter comes as part of the continuous efforts of the Bulgarian Internet Society to ensure that all software companies are treated equally and fairly by the government, in stead of special, complimentary relations. The most recent result of these efforts is a statement by the Bulgarian Minister of State Administration. In May 2005 he announced that he will not renew the contract between the government and Microsoft. This contract was closed in 2002, but has been heavily criticised since, both nationally and internationally.

In stead of getting information on European passengers headed for the United States fifteen minutes after take-off, the US now want the information one hour before the plane departs. Michael Chertoff, chief of the Department of Homeland Security announced this on 23 May 2005 during a visit to the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

Under the current passenger name record (PNR) agreement between the EU and the US, the US can pull the information directly from the European airlines reservation systems. A push system in which the airlines send the information themselves still needs to be implemented. Chertoff believes that passengers and airlines will be positive about the new demand, to prevent any further incidents with planes sent back to the EU.

The European Parliament has taken the European Commission to court over the agreement with the US on the transfer of air passenger's personal data (PNR). The Strasbourg Court is examining whether the Commission, when making the deal, exceeded its powers and acted in breach of EU Data Protection legislation. In an interview with EUPolitix.com EU Commissioner for Justice Frattini said he expects a decision by the Court in September.

On 12 and 13 May 2005 the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) organised a successful conference in London to make progress on a draft international treaty on Access to Knowledge (A2K). It was the third meeting of a very diverse expert group of academics, educators, representatives of libraries, consumer organisations and people from the open source movement. During the conference all the detailed provisions laid out in each of the sections of the draft treaty were debated in separate sessions. Thanks to strong pressure from the chairs, urging speakers to be pointed in their assessments and short in their speech, the analysis was completed on time and recorded in every detail.

This global coalition took shape in September 2004, when TACD organised a session in Geneva to discuss reform of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The meeting laid down a challenge to WIPO to reform rules relating to intellectual property (IP), such as copyright and patents. The joint goal is providing wider access to knowledge, especially for poorer consumers in developing countries and restoring a balance in IP-rules to uphold the traditional rights of users.