22. May 2020

Try harder, Bundestag! Germany has to rewrite its foreign intelligence reform

What the German Constitutional Court’s decision on the BND…

by Thorsten WetzlingEditor-in-Chief, about:intel

Thorsten heads interface's research on surveillance and democratic governance. He created the European Intelligence Oversight Network (EION) and is a Principal Investigator in the new collaborative research project GUARDINT, designed to address and to redress the gap between increasingly transnational surveillance practices and still largely national accountability mechanisms. Thorsten gave testimony before the European Parliament and the Bundestag on intelligence legislation, and his work appeared in various media outlets. He is a member of the advisory board on Europe/Transatlantic of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Berlin and the scientific committee of the Cyber and Data Security Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Thorsten holds a doctorate degree in political science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. In the past, Thorsten worked as Senior Fellow at the Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security, The Hague Institute for Global Justice, and as Advisor for the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). As Transatlantic Post-Doc Fellow for International Relations and Security (TAPIR), Thorsten studied national surveillance policies at the French Institute for International Relations (ifri) in Paris and the RAND Corporation and the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.

27. April 2020

The Polish surveillance regime before the ECHR

After ignoring the Constitutional Tribunal’s call for…

by Barbara Grabowska-MorozResearch Fellow at the CEU Democracy Institute

Barbara Grabowska-Moroz is a research fellow at the CEU Democracy Institute and previously worked as a lawyer and project coordinator for the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw. There she monitored legislative processes on issues including access to justice, surveillance law and criminal defence rights. Together with activists from the Panoptykon Foundation, she filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights regarding the lack of effective protection against illegal surveillance in Polish legislation.

1. April 2020

The Club de Berne: a black box of growing intelligence cooperation

An in-depth account of how this notoriously secret club has…

by Jan JiratJournalist, WOZ – Die Wochenzeitung

Jan Jirat is a journalist working for independent Swiss weekly WOZ - Die Wochenzeitung in Zurich. He mainly writes about security and far right extremism. He is a member of the investigative journalism networks investigativ.ch and Netzwerk Recherche eV.

16. March 2020

Digital technologies in peace operations

As conflict moves to the cyber realm, peace efforts must,…

by Annika S. HansenSenior Researcher and Deputy Head of the Analysis Division, Center for International Peace Operations

Dr. Annika S. Hansen is a senior researcher and Deputy Head of the Analysis Division at the Center for International Peace Operations, Berlin, Germany. She previously worked for the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.

11. March 2020

European metadata retention: news from the EU court

An analysis of the AG’s opinion on data retention and…

by Bastien Le QuerrecPhD candidate in public law; Member of litigation team, La Quadrature du Net

Bastien is a PhD student in public law at Université Grenoble-Alpes (France). He is working on algorithmic decisions of the administration and their impacts on human rights. He is also a member of La Quadrature du Net, a French NGO that promotes and defends fundamental rights in our digital era, and its litigation team.

13. February 2020

Years of MI5 lawbreaking expose failure of UK surveillance safeguards

The only thing worse than secret services with sweeping…

by Megan GouldingSolicitor, Liberty

Megan Goulding is a lawyer at the UK human rights organisation Liberty. Megan specialises in privacy, technology and human rights and runs Liberty’s litigation in this area. She is currently working in particular on state surveillance and police technologies. She is acting for a client in the first legal challenge to police use of facial recognition technology. She is also running Liberty’s own challenges to bulk surveillance, both at the European Court of Human Rights and in the UK courts. Previous to Liberty, Megan worked as a solicitor in private practice.

23. January 2020

Update pending: intelligence oversight needs oversight intelligence

Seven ideas for how to close the gap between high-tech…

by Kilian ViethResearcher and Project Manager, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung

Kilian Vieth manages Stiftung Neue Verantwortung’s work on digital rights, surveillance, and democracy. He is the project manager for the European Intelligence Oversight Network (EION), which provides European intelligence oversight officials and other experts a space for regular and structured exchange. As a researcher in the GUARDINT project, Kilian studies the potentials and limits of overseeing surveillance and works on the development of an intelligence oversight index and a surveillance law database. His research focusses on the democratic control of intelligence and reform approaches for rights-based and more efficient intelligence and surveillance policy in Germany and Europe. Beyond that, his research interests include digital human rights and critical security studies. He was invited to testify before the parliament of Hesse on regional intelligence legislation. Kilian previously worked on different research projects at the Center for Internet and Human Rights (CIHR) at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, where he is still a Fellow. He has also worked as a consultant and project manager in political campaigning at a communications consultancy in Berlin. He holds a dual master’s degree in Political Science and European Affairs from Sciences Po Paris (France) and Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and a bachelor’s degree in Public Management and Governance from Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen (Germany).

19. December 2019

Austrian government’s hacking law ruled unconstitutional

Why the Constitutional Court of Austria scrapped government…

by Alina Hanelworked on Austrian surveillance law, epicenter.works

worked with epicenter.works on their campaign against the Austrian surveillance law

12. December 2019

Casual attitude in intelligence sharing is troubling

The Dutch secret services share data with foreign services…

by Lotte HouwingPolicy Advisor & Researcher, Bits of Freedom

Lotte Houwing works as a researcher and policy advisor at Bits of Freedom, a Dutch NGO for internet freedoms. There she leads the government surveillance programme where she focuses on policy regulating the capabilities of the secret services with a strong focus on protections of the rights of privacy and freedom of communication. In this capacity she filed a successful complaint procedure against the unlawful detention of bulk datasets by the Dutch intelligence agencies. She has a special interest in the analysis of power in relationships between government institutions and people. She has a background in philosophy and graduated cum laude from her research master in law on the Dutch Intelligence and Security Services Act 2017 at the University of Groningen. When she finds time she publishes on the use of technlogy by the police. But mostly she will be found in her garden.

18. November 2019

Hardwired bias: how data-driven policing exacerbates racial discrimination

New report by the European Network Against Racism shows…

by Karen TaylorChair, European Network Against Racism (ENAR)

Karen Taylor is Chair of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) and Director of Advocacy at Each One Teach One (EOTO e.V.), based in Germany. In addition, Karen is a member of the coordination group for the implementation of the "UN-Decade for people of African descent" in Germany.