Paris, 4 July 2016 — This evening the committee of the European Parliament on Civil Liberties (LIBE) will vote on the draft directive on combating terrorism. La Quadrature du Net already warned about the dangerous provisions of this text and urges once more MEPs to oppose this text.
Dear member of the LIBE committee,
You will vote on the draft of the directive on combating terrorism this evening at 7PM. The provisions of this text are infringing the balance of powers (especially between the judiciary and the executive) and will extend the dangerous tools that France adopted a year from now.
We are very concerned about some provisions that infringe the balance of powers and civil rights:
- On compromise 4, the notion of “intention” has been now added to the text (recital 11) but the “clear knowledge” may damage the elaboration and the commercialisation of privacy tools for common citizens.
- On compromise 6, our biggest concern is the removal of content and blocking of websites without a prior judicial decision and oversight. On this, we have exactly the same provisions in France since the anti-terror law (2014) and recently the Council of Europe compared these provisions to censorship happening in Turkey and Russia. No matter France’s pressure to promote these proposals, the generalisation of these provisions at the European level would be a disaster for the fragile balance of our civil rights.
We urge you to vote against these two compromise amendments and not to give your consent to Mrs. Hohlmeier to open a trialogue without any prior discussion in plenary session. These provisions have a deep impact on civil rights and liberties and must be discussed with all the Members of the European Parliament unless there are opposed today during the vote in LIBE Committee.
You can find our analysis here: https://wiki.laquadrature.net/Directive_Terrorisme/en
You will find attached our voting-list for this draft.
We hope you will protect your voters’ civil rights as you cast your vote.
Best,
La Quadrature du Net