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By Eric Pape
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Last year French drivers killed fewer than 5,000 people on the roads for the first time in decades. Credit goes largely to the 1,000 automated radar cameras planted on the nation's highways since 2003, which experts reckon saved 3,000 lives last year. Success, of course, breeds success: the government plans to install 500 more radar devices this year.
So it goes with surveillance these days. Europeans used to look at the security cameras posted in British cities, subways and buses as the seeds of an Orwellian world that was largely unacceptable in Continental Europe. But last year's London bombings, in which video cameras played a key role in identifying the perpetrators, have helped spur a sea change. A month after the London attacks, half of Germans supported EU-wide plans to require Internet providers and telecoms to store all e-mail, Internet and phone data for "antiterror" purposes. In a British poll, 73 percent of respondents said they were ready to give up some civil liberties to improve security.
Europe's politicians are now less concerned with privacy than with appearing to be soft on terrorism. In December, lawmakers in Brussels passed Europewide legislation that permits police to snoop through cell-phone and Internet data. They are requiring cell-phone companies to retain calling information, such as the time of calls, to whom they were made and the location of the cell-phone holder; should a terrorist attack take place, cops want to be able to track callers before and after the event. Telecoms will be required to retain this information for between six months and two years.
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France, which was a target of radical Muslim terrorists well before 9/11, adopted a tough antiterror law in December that clears the way for authorities to install thousands of video cameras in transport hubs, religious centers (mostly mosques), workplaces and public spaces. The information could allow authorities to identify perpetrators after the fact, as in London, or show part of an attack taking place, as in Madrid. The law also opens up mobile-phone and Internet records, as well as previously confidential customer travel and shipping information, to scrutiny by authorities tracking suspicious individuals. And it requires cybercafe computer users to provide an ID document whose number is recorded and linked to the computer used and time of day.
Even Amsterdam, a city legendary for its liberal attitudes, is spending millions to increase video surveillance of public transport. Cameras now watch places like the El-Tawheed mosque. Italy spends [euro]275 million a year on telephone intercepts and conducts an astounding 172 judicial intercepts or wiretaps per 100,000 inhabitants.
Not everyone is happy with all these watchful eyes. Aside from the privacy implications, some security experts warn that all this new information may overwhelm cops. Computer programs that flag suspicious data still require human intervention.
What's the next step in this surveillance culture? By the end of the year, British authorities will begin sending license-plate information from thousands of roadside cameras to a new central database, as well as to police and M.I.6. Fighting terror is one rationale for the system, but on a day-to-day basis it will come in most handy as a way of checking that drivers are insured and have no outstanding violations or warrants. That points out one potential problem. Studies have shown that surveillance is good for preventing assaults on taxi drivers and other petty incidents, but has little effect on major crime. If this proves to be the case with terrorism, Europeans may one day grow tired of being watched.
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