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On 31 May 2008, privacy activists organized new rallies in more than 30 cities across Germany.

Following the November 2007 protests under the motto "Freedom not Fear"("Freiheit statt Angst"), thousands of citizens participated in this year street actions.

Numerous demonstrations, rallies, information events, as well as workshops and art performances sent clear signals to protect constitutional rights and limit the rampant proliferation of surveillance.

The rallies had the goal of demonstrating to the ruling grand coalition, a decisive NO of citizens to the blanket collection and storage of data, as well as to the surveillance of all details of daily life. The activities were

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During its 32nd International Public Meeting in Paris of 22-26 June, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the proposal to expand the world's Domain Name System.

Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's president and CEO, said in a statement: "The Board today accepted a recommendation from its global stakeholders that it is possible to implement many new names to the Internet, paving the way for an expansion of domain name choice and opportunity. (...) The potential here is huge. It represents a whole new way for people to express themselves on the Net. It's a massive increase in the 'real estate' of the Internet."

"This was an extremely successful meeting that will be remembered as a

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On 25 June 2008, the European Parliament's Standing Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs asked for measures to correct the European Commission's proposal to amend the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (called ePrivacy Directive).

"We have introduced a few points directed towards better consumer protection and manageability" in order to "improve data protection overall and bring it in line with the changed situation" stated Rapporteur for the project MEP Alexander Alvaro (FDP).

Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), adopted, on 14 April, an Opinion on the European Commission's proposal amending, among others, the ePrivacy Directive. The EDPS basically supported the EC proposal

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As stated by the New York Times on 26 June 2008, the United States and the European Union are close to conclude an agreement allowing the exchange of personal data of their citizens, including credit card information, travel history and Internet browsing information in order to be shared with the law enforcement and security agencies.

According to an internal report revealed by the newspaper, the potential agreement that has been negotiated since February 2007 between the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Justice and State departments and their European counterparts will make clear that it is lawful for European governments and companies to transfer personal information to the United

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An appeal from three European NGOs - La Quadrature du Net, netzpolitik.org and EDRi-member Open Rights Group - reveal some disturbing MEPs amendments to the draft directives to reform the EU framework on electronic communications (telecom package).

The review of the telecom package was merely focusing on telecom-related issues (except for discussions on the ePrivacy directive, which is the subject of another EDRi-gram article in the current issue), but some of the 800 amendments on the 5 directives that form the current package might go further than just establishing the rules for a functioning electronic communications market and could endanger the principle of the neutrality of

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A report of the Home Affairs Committee shows concerns that Britain might be in danger of becoming a Big Brother type of state and calls on the UK ministers to take the necessary measures to provide safeguards and minimize the amount of the citizen's information collected and stored in databases.

The report shows concerns especially in relation to the ID card scheme that might be used to spy on people. "We are concerned about the potential for 'function creep' in terms of the surveillance potential of the national identity scheme. (...) Any ambiguity about the objectives of the scheme puts in jeopardy the public's trust in the scheme itself and in the government's ability to run it" says the Committee in its report.

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Lex Orwell, a law proposal for total surveillance, is urgently being pushed to a vote on 17 June 2008 by national security hawks in the peaceful Kingdom of Sweden. It will mandate the "NSA franchise", the FRA, to turn its forest of parabola ears and world's 5th largest super computer to listen to you - or rather what you do, say and share on the Internet - would an information package pass the Swedish borders.

FRA is the Swedish shorthand for The National Defence Radio Establishment. An institution very active during the cold war but without a clear task or purpose today since material from satellite traffic from military activities the Baltics isn't particularly a la mode any more. To stay in business, FRA has therefore for years pursued

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The new Communications Data Bill proposed by the Home Office has met the opposition of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) which has shown concerns related to the proposals of building one Government-owned database with records of phone calls, email and Internet use in the UK.

In ICO's opinion, the action is not justified. "If the intention is to bring all mobile and internet records together under one system, this would give us serious concerns and may well be a step too far. We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen's phone and internet records. (...) We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable. We have warned before that we are