URGENT action save am138 against horrible compromise

An informal meeting of the Conciliation committee delegation of the European Parliament will meet on October 13th, 11h. In this meeting, they will be presented an analysis by the legal team of the Parliament aimed at making them accept an extremely dangerous compromise amendment in replacement for amendment 138, essential safeguard for citizen's freedoms.

You must convince members of the delegation to start the negotiations with the original amendment 138, adapt its wording if necessary, but reject this compromise that imposes an orwellian vision for freedoms in EU

When?

It is crucial to contact members of the Conciliation Committe delegation of the European Parliament, and their substitutes, before their unofficial meeting on October 13th, 11h!!!. Only a very few hours left, don't hesitate!

Who?

Check this list of the 27 Members of the European Parliament in the conciliation committe and their substitutes, sortable by country, political group, or score to the previous votes of the Telecoms Package.

It is important to contact members of every political group !

Start with members from you country, then Call on the members of the negotiation team (Trautmann, Vidal-Quadras, Reul), then the others.

What?

Key points

background

• Amendment 138 was voted 2 times in the EU "Telecoms Package" by 88% of the European Parliament. It is an essential safeguard to citizens fundamental rights, stating that "no restriction on fundamental rights and freedom (can be taken) without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities". This a very strong restatement of current EU law, that is under threat by such projects as the French "three strikes" HADOPI law, or similar projects in UK, etC.
• The Council of EU disagrees since the beginning with this amendment. They tried to remove, with no justification, several times. Now it is the only point of disagreement between the Council and the European Parliament. It is currently being negotiated right in the Conciliation procedure

status

• A new formulation has been proposed for an amendment that would replace amendment 138. This amendment turns the respect of the rights of each citizen to a due process into a dispensable option that can be discarded at will, for instance for "prevention or detection of criminal offenses". This new formulation is even worse than nothing.
• The European Parliament legal service produced an analysis justifying to drop the original 138 in favor of this bad compromise. The analysis concludes on some minor points yet justifies, as expected, the adoption of the compromise, without even talking of the dreadful "prevention or detection of criminal offenses" exception.
• All their arguments can be countered, especially the ones related to Article 95 of the EU Treaty (the IPRED2 directive for instance changed the Member States criminal laws, jurisprudence about art.95 is fluctuating).
• Apart from the legal arguments, it is not tolerable that such a compromise be pushed in such condition, with the help of an administrative body of the Parliament.
• Indeed there are some adaptations needed to the text of amendment 138. If the definition of "fundamental rights and freedoms" is too broad, it could be shortened to "freedom of expression and communication and freedom of information" for instance. The reference to the Charter for Fundamental Rights can be removed, etc.
• The Parliament must not give up Citizens' fundamental Freedoms. They must negotiate by starting with the original amendment 138 text, and adapt it, instead of accepting a much dangerous compromise.

Sources of analysis and argumentation

You can find arguments to talk to them in the following documents and sources:

• Text for the bad compromise
• Memo debunking the Council's arguments about am.138
• Letter sent to the Members of the European Parliament, about debunking Council's arguments.

General advices

• A phone call is 100 times more efficient than an email! Phonecalls are personal and are harder to avoid than emails.
• A cut/paste email has *negative* impact: it weakens the content and make it look like spam.
• MEPs assistants who will answer are most of the time young and intelligent people who understand the importance of these issues. All of them use Internet.
• Always be polite in your communications. MEPs and their assistants are people just like us.
• After sending a short email explaining your concerns in a few words, and containing as an attachment the note of La Quadrature, you can make a phonecall. This may be more useful as it has more impact than an email. (MEP's offices are saturated with mails)
• Don't hesitate to offer to send additional information by email, as a follow-up.
• If your correspondent offers to call back but doesn't, don't hesitate to call back. MEPs and their assistants are often very busy.
• If you don't find the answer to a question, note it down and offer you correspondent to call back once you'll have it. Don't hesitate to submit it to us (contact AT laquadrature.net, #laquadrature on irc.freenode.net or discussion list: discut AT laquadrature.net)
• As a rule: have at hand what you need for note taking, to note down the name of your correspondent, information they might give you, a list of blocking points you may work on before calling back, remaining questions, documents you need to send to them, etc.