Arming Big Brother

A new report out from Statewatch reveals that the European Union is to spend €1 billion a year on new reseach into surveillance and control technologies.

"Arming Big Brother lifts the lid on the secretive committees and arms industry lobbying that led to the creation of the European Security Research Programme (ESRP). In 2003, a ‘Group of Personalities’ (GoP) comprised of EU officials and Europe’s biggest arms and IT companies, argued that European multinationals need one billion euros per year so they can compete with US multinationals and the US government’s funding of ‘Homeland Security’ research.

The GoP’s demands were endorsed by the European Commission, which ignored its own rules on EU research expenditure to begin funding ‘security’ research immediately. The Commission has also appointed a European Security Research Advisory Board (ESRAB) to develop and implement the future ESRP. ESRAB includes at least 14 defence companies amongst its 50 members, but no one from the European Parliament or the EU Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies."
The full report is available from Statewatch as a pdf download:
www.statewatch.org/news/2006/apr/bigbrother.pdf