In Romania, 4 parliamentarians from the (opposition) Social Democrat Party (PSD) have initiated a draft law to drastically extend wiretapping powers in cases of defending national security. According to the draft law the interception of communications would be possible without a warrant from a judge in some cases.

In special cases that involve the national security, the interception could start right away. Authorisation for the interception for communications should be requested from a judge in maximum 48 hours after the interception started. The draft law explicitly refuses the right to appeal to any communications interception authorisation. The MPs also wish to drop the demand for a warrant if someone is testing new interception equipment or just making improvements to the interception equipment.

The German Constitutional Court has outlawed a special security law of the state of Niedersachsen that allowed police to wiretap telephone connections without any specific suspicion, as well as collect traffic data, GSM location data, e-mail and SMS traffic. The ruling also affects the state of Thuringen, with a similar law, and Bavaria, currently developing a similar law.

The Court outlines that under the German constitution interception is only possible under strict conditions. The security law is too vague (not specific enough and not enough standardised) and doesn't guarantee that completely private conversations are excluded or immediately deleted from the record. Preventive interception can only be lawful according to the Court if there are specific indications pointing to the preparation or planning of a criminal act.

After the recent discovery that the Italian Autistici/Inventati server had been seized by the Italian police and a backdoor had been probably installed to allow for easier monitoring of all communication going through it, looks like another Italian community server could have endured the same fate.

On Monday 27 June 2005, two members of FLUG (Firenze Linux User Group) visited the data centre of Dada S.p.a., in Milan, where the community server of the group is physically housed, in order to move it to another provider.

When the server was put out of the rack, however, it was discovered that the upper lid of the server case was half-opened. At a closer inspection, it was also discovered that the case lid was scratched, as if it had been put out and reinserted into the rack. Worse, the CD-ROM cable was missing, as were the screws that kept the hard disks in place.

On 21 June 2005 the Italian collective Austistici/Inventati discovered a major police backdoor in their server. The server hosts a large number of websites, mailboxes, mailing lists and Internet services for NGOs, grassroots activists and public interest associations. The backdoor was installed over a year ago, on 15 June 2004 by the Italian "Polizia Postale" (Postal Police), after a seizure ordered by the Procura di Bologna (Office of the Public Prosecutor in Bologna) in the context of an investigation into the anarchist collective Crocenera.

The legal owners of the server ('Investici', a legally recognised association) were not informed, nor by the police nor by the public prosecutor. The provider claimed that the downtime - caused by the Police putting the server off-line - was due to a power outage.

The Belgian police has doubled the number of judicial telephone wiretaps in 2004. From 1.336 intercepts in 2003, they went to 2.562 intercepts in 2004. In 2002, the number was below 900. In Belgium, an intercept law was adopted in 1994 that allowed for telephony wiretaps, if authorised by an investigating magistrate and for a limited number of crimes.

The Belgian newspaper De Tijd writes the rise in the number of intercepts is probably due to the greater technical ease since the creation of the Central Technical Interception Facility (CTIF). Also, previously the law demanded that each intercept had to be fully typed out, costing approximately 12 man-hours per hour of intercept. A wiretapping order in Belgium is valid for 6 months, but the police have to report to the investigating magistrate every 5 days.

The Dutch association of criminal defence lawyers (NVSA) has lost a court case (preliminary proceedings) demanding an immediate stop to the practice of wiretapping their confidential telephone conversations with clients. On 15 March 2005 the administrative Court of the Hague ruled that these conversations do not per definition fall under the professional secrecy. There is a specific decree in the Netherlands that allows for the wiretapping of lawyers. First a full report of the wiretap on a suspect is made and read by the specific prosecutor responsible for the case. If the prosecutor concludes that the report contains confidential conversations with a lawyer, he can decide to have those parts deleted en removed from the file.

The lawyers association, supported by a destructive report by the Dutch

The Dutch ministry of defence is planning to build a large facility to intercept civilian and military satellite communications. The Echelon-like site at Burum, in the north of the Netherlands, will have 15 dishes and listen to telephone, fax and internet telecommunications. The large streams of intercepted information will be examined by a new intelligence service, the National Sigint Organisation (NSO). This organisation will become the third secret service in the Netherlands next to the already existing military and the civilian intelligence service.

The Dutch government wants to drastically expand it signals intelligence capabilities. Until now satellite snooping is done through a two dish facility at Zoutkamp. The ministry of Defence first tried to expand the existing location but was blocked in court by people living nearby. The court ruled that provisions in the municipal land-use plan would conflict with such a large military installation. The ministry also couldn't counter safety concerns. The new site at Burum is actually a commercial satellite ground station operated by Xantic, in which Dutch telecommunication company KPN has a 65% share.

The Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL has launched a court case against the Dutch State to recuperate the investments it has done to comply with wiretapping legislation. XS4ALL says it has invested half a million euro since 2001 to enable law enforcement authorities to place a wiretap on a specific customer. The Dutch State only reimburses the administrative costs of executing a specific wiretapping order, but none of the costs of purchasing and maintaining the necessary equipment.

In the 49 page subpoena XS4ALL states this cost shift is unfair from the principle of equal discharge of public burdens, unjustified under the European Authorisation Directive and an obstruction to the freedom of speech. Besides, in many other countries providers do get a full reimbursement for wiretapping, such as in Austria (after ISPs had launched a procedure at the Constitutional Court), Italy, Finland, France and the UK. Also in the United States providers are also fully reimbursed for wiretapping costs, creating a serious competition problem for Dutch providers.