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Civil rights organizations call for protests against the constant increase of surveillance conducted by governments and enterprises. A rally under the motto "Freedom not Fear" will be held in Berlin on 11 October 2008. The organizers agree that it is high time to take to the streets in order to defend basic constitutional rights in the light of an ongoing intensification of security and surveillance measures.

Yesterday, an appeal-court in Germany suspended an earlier order to build a backdoor into Germany's most famous anonymising service. The backdoor was removed immediately. According to the original court-order, the IP-addresses of all visitors to a certain website had to be logged and handed-over to the federal criminal police office. This vital information was not disclosed by the developers, but discovered by an attentive user of the service who close-read the open source.

The AN.ON-service enables its users to surf anonymously via a Java-webproxy, disguising traces through a network of 'Mix'-computers.

Several leading human rights NGOs from Macedonia issued a reaction to the Parliament and the Government of Republic of Macedonia on 24 June 2008, regarding the recent changes in the Law on Criminal Procedure and the Law on Interception of Communications, allowing special investigative measures (such as surveillance).

The Foundation Open Society Institute - Macedonia, the Association for Criminal Justice and Criminology of Macedonia and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights of the Republic of Macedonia expressed deep concern because of the fast-track adoption of changes in the legislation "without no expert discussion whatsoever." These changes can turn Macedonia from a state based on a rule of law into a "police state unconcerned with respect of basic human rights and freedoms."

The Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment FRA that has made the headlines last month with its law on spying on all communication, has recently announced that it has reported a blogger to the Chancellor of Justice for distributing what they consider classified material proving the Agency was spying on Swedes starting with 1996.

Henrik Alexandersson is the name of the blogger that criticized the new FRA surveillance law. He published two lists of FRA's alleged classified material on his blog. The first document is a list of 103 Swedish citizens that were under surveillance in the early 90's for having contacts with Russia. The other publication is a list of connections between Russian and Swedish corporations from 1996, which may imply that FRA was illegally listening to cable bound traffic.

The mobilization against EDVIGE, the newly created database to be used by French intelligence services and the administrative police, has been growing. Within only two weeks, the petition was signed by more than 50 000 individuals and 500 organizations.

French Parliamentarians are also standing up against EDVIGE: not only more than 40 of them have signed the petition, but 10 have addressed written questions to the French Interior Minister, to ask for the withdrawal of this file.

Complaints against the French government have also started. Lesbian and gay associations are asking the HALDE (High Authority for the Fight against Discriminations) to give its opinion on the fact that EDVIGE will retain data on the sexual orientation and health. Other complaints are starting to be filed with the French highest administrative court for the annulment of

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Remember the movie 'Das Leben der Anderen' (The Lives of Others), where a Stasi agent was monitoring a playwriter's life? This doesn't translate anymore in French into 'La vie des autres', but rather into EDVIGE, the name of a newly created database to be used by French intelligence services and the administrative police.

EDVIGE will file "individuals, groups, organisations and moral persons which, due to their individual or collective activity, are likely to attempt to public order". Not only these persons will be filed (without any offence committed), but also "those who undertake or have undertaken direct and non fortuitous relations with them." Filing starts at age 13.

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Privacy International has complained to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) against Google's Street View cars, which grab real photographs of streets and people, that get loaded into Google Maps.

Street View distinctive cars have been recently spotted on London. The system allows Google's users to view 360 degree photographs of streetscapes in towns and cities that have been catalogued by Google cameras.

Privacy International has expressed its reservations towards Google's practice in a letter sent to the company: "You may be aware that Privacy International has stated, both privately to Google legal staff and to the media, that we are concerned about a number of potential violations of

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In Denmark we already have Data Retention in place and the rest of Europe will follow soon. That means that our own countries demand that Internet companies and phone companies log who we phone, email with, chat with, which websites we visit, etc. This is something that the IT-Political Associations of Denmark (IT-Pol) fights against.

Sweden has now taken one more step towards the complete surveillance of its citizens as well as citizens of the rest of the world.

The Swedish Parliament (Riksdagen) passed a law that instructs all telephone and Internet operators to deliver a copy of all phone and Internet communication crossing Swedish borders to the Swedish intelligence service FRA. FRA will then use a big spying network and one