EU seeks faster terrorism e-evidence from US firms

535 yrs jail for ETA militants

STRASBOURG, France, April 18, (Agencies): The EU on Tuesday proposed new rules to help member states obtain email and other digital evidence of terror or criminal suspects from US and other internet firms within hours or days.

The European Commission, the EU executive, said member country requests to service providers like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Apple had risen 70 percent in the last few years but complained the process can take months.

The EU’s justice commissioner Vera Jourova told a press conference in Strasbourg, France, that many prosecutors complained of facing problems obtaining electronic evidence under the current rules “almost daily”.

“Today we propose new rules to make it easier and faster for police and judicial authorities to access the electronic evidence they need in investigations to prosecute and convict criminals and terrorists,” Jourova said.

Under the proposed law, service providers would be expected to respond within 10 days, or six hours in an emergency, when judges or prosecutors in an EU member state ask for emails, text messages or other electronic communications.

“This is a true revolution in the EU system of judicial cooperation in criminal matters,” Jourova said.

Jourova

Berlin hits brakes on Macron’s EU dreams:

French President Emmanuel Macron’s vision for a stronger European Union may be in tatters as a growing rift emerges with Germany on everything from defence to his plans for deeper eurozone integration.

Less than a year after his stunning election win on a pro-EU platform, Macron’s hopes of pushing through his bold post-Brexit reforms with Chancellor Angela Merkel by his side are facing a cold dose of reality.

“Macron’s European initiative is as dead as a dormouse,” Der Spiegel news weekly wrote ahead of the Frenchman’s visit to Berlin Thursday, a chance for both leaders to take stock of the stalled reform process.

The talks come as differences between the neighbours were thrown into stark relief in recent days, when Berlin — but not Paris — chose to sit out the biggest Western intervention yet in the Syrian war.

And while Macron laid out his lofty reform goals in a passionate speech to the European Parliament, Merkel’s own party publicly pushed back against his proposals for a eurozone budget and an expansion of the EU’s bailout fund.

Germany carries out biggest raids:

German federal police said they carried out the biggest raids in their history Wednesday against an alleged organised crime ring suspected of trafficking hundreds of women and transsexuals from Thailand for prostitution.

The federal police force said in a statement that a record 1,500 officers swooped on more than 60 brothels and flats in 12 of Germany’s 16 states.

Prosecutors have 56 suspects in their sights, 41 of them women.

Authorities say a “core group” of 17 suspects “smuggled Thai women and transsexuals into Germany with fraudulent” visas for the passport-free Schengen zone.

Those brought to Germany “had to hand over 100 percent of their wages to the operators of the respective ‘massage parlours’ to pay off their smuggling fee”, an extortionate sum of between 16,000 and 36,000 euros ($20,000-45,000).

Seven of the accused, including a 59-year-old Thai woman and her 62-year-old German partner, were taken into custody on outstanding arrest warrants.

French strikes disrupt trains, flights:

French rail workers, airline employees and students staged another string of strikes and sit-ins Wednesday despite French President Emmanuel Macron’s insistence that protests won’t prevent him from trying to overhaul the economy.

Rail workers resumed a strike set to disrupt traffic off-and-on through June. National railway company SNCF said one out of three high-speed trains is running.

International train traffic to Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain was also disrupted, with the exception of the Thalys train to Belgium and the Netherlands, which was running normally.

The striking workers, whose number was down slightly from previous protests, are demonstrating against plans to revoke a special status that allows them to retain jobs and other benefits for life.

On Tuesday night, France’s Assembly approved the bill, meant to prepare French rail for competition. The text will now be debated by the Senate.

535 years jail for ETA militants:

Spain’s Supreme Court confirmed 535-year prison sentences for two ETA militants, it said Wednesday, just weeks before the Basque separatist group is expected to announce its dissolution after decades of violence.

Liher Aretxabaleta Rodriguez, 38, and Alaitz Aramendi Jaunarena, 40, were handed the sentence last year by Spain’s National Court, which deals with terror cases, but they appealed it.

They were sentenced for 45 “terrorist murder attempts,” according to a ruling by the Supreme Court, which rejected their appeal.

They are also accused of having placed a car bomb in the San Blas district of Madrid in May 2005 “with the intention of causing as much damage as possible, accepting the potential death or injuries of people there or nearby”.

Russia says to probe Facebook:

Russia’s telecoms watchdog plans to probe Facebook before the end of the year after blocking access in the country to the popular messaging app Telegram, its head said on Wednesday.

“We will conduct a probe of the company before the end of 2018,” the head of state regulator Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, told pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia.

Russia’s telecoms regulator has repeatedly warned Facebook it could be banned this year unless it complies with a law on the personal data of Russian nationals.

A 2014 law requiring foreign messaging services, search engines and social networking sites to store the personal data of Russian users inside the country has caused widespread concern as it is seen as putting the information at risk of being accessed by Russian intelligence services.