Wire-tapping in Italy
Civil Libertarians may have an unusual ally – Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi.
The Telegraph reports that at any one time in Italy 130,000 phone lines are being recorded by authorities, with a total of 3,000,000 Italians spied on every year.
Berlusconi has said a new law will ban the use of wire-taps except in investigations into terrorism and organised crime with illegal wiretaps carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison.
Italy has a population of 60 million, so this is the equivalent in New Zealand of a bit over 8,000 phone lines being tapped at any poin in time and 200,000 NZers being spied on by the state every year.
And people complain about the US Patriot Act!
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Tags: interception, Italy, Silvia Berlusconi
June 12th, 2008 at 10:01 am
The real problem is that the transcripts are published on the Italian newspapers as soon as someone is investigated. So much for the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ refrain
June 12th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Amazing – state surveillance going the OTHER way!
June 12th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
You have to present your passport to use an Italian internet cafe and they scan the main page.
At least the “Coin” (a bit like Kirks) in Genoa has a very nice internet cafe, so this made up for it.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
@peterwn
Never heard about such a thing, when was it introduced?
June 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
DPF, that is a good point about the “Patriot Act” in the USA. The truth is that the USA is the freest nation in the WORLD and the “Patriot Act” merely introduces a whisker of the surveillance measures available to the authorities that are the NORM EVERYWHERE ELSE, INCLUDING NZ. But anti-Americanism in the MSM and elsewhere is noted for the sort of hypocrisy that is involved in all the uproar over the “Patriot Act” of the “Bushitler”…….
June 12th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
check for ‘legal intercept requirements’ in the (many times amended) telecommunications Act – you may be surprised!
June 12th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
The UK government has just gone the other way and decided it is fine and dandy to lock people but for 42 day without charges. Gordon Brown had to rely on the DUP (Northern Ireland politicians) to get the vote through parliament because so many of his own Labour party politicians voted against it. Unlikely to make it through the House of Lords though, which is nice.
Best thing is that because some clown lost intelligence documents on a train, Gordon doesn’t even get the good press for a false appearance of being tough on terrorism.
Gordon and Hels are having a race to see who can be the most unpopular Labour Prime Minister before getting the boot.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
OECD, you say that as if Brown was, at some stage, popular.
AT least “our” Hulun was leader when folk got to cast their vote.
Speaking of Hulun, I got a nice little bit of proper gander in the letterbox. And there was THAT photo again: the one in which she looks like a babe. They really DO think our brains are smaller than fish. I guess for 29ish% of the population, this is true.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
The whole situation in the US is not in any way about the threat to the average citizen. It has everything to do with the threat to political power.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Philbest, it is depressing to see the extent of the powers given to US border control these days as anyone who flies into the country will readily testify. The government over there have pretty much handed unlimited control to the bureacracy in the form of the DHS and other agents of the “war on terror”. They make our Inland Revenue Department and all the horror stories about them in the 1990s look like a sunday school picnic.
This is all happening because of the threat to the power of the Administration. There may have been 3000 ordinary citizens killed in 9/11 but the real issue was the threat to the White House and the Pentagon, not the civilian deaths.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Brown could only wish for 29% support for the Labour party in the UK. They are getting hammered in the polls at the moment. With the economic outlook not looking too flash it’s safe to say he has no hope of holding on in 2010. It saves John Key having to cultivate relationships, although a visit to David Cameron when he passes through this neck of the woods wouldn’t go a miss.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Yeah Yeah USA
A judge has finally taken a stand and ruled that the prisoners in Guantanamo can take action through the US civil courts for illegal detention and unconstitutional treatment.
While I deplore terrorism in all forms (my wife is Sri Lankan, and the family is under constant threat from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers,) I nevertheless believe that when any country even looks for ways around the rule of law it is itself adopting terrorist tactics and should be stopped.
It’s taken way too long for the judicial branch to say ‘no’ to the administrativ branch in the USA, and the fact that it has had to be done in the way it has is a condemnation of the ‘american way’ and nothing else. I would happil countenance bringing the judge in question to New Zealand and offering him the position of Chief Justice; it’s his type of intestinal fortitude we need in that role if it is to lead the way as effectively as the Privy Council did for centuries.