In the wake of the disclosures surrounding PRISM and other US surveillance
programmes, this study makes an assessment of the large-scale surveillance
practices by a selection of EU member states: the UK, Sweden, France,
Germany and the Netherlands. Given the large-scale nature of surveillance
practices at stake, which represent a reconfiguration of traditional intelligence
gathering, the study contends that an analysis of European surveillance
programmes cannot be reduced to a question of balance between data
protection versus national security, but has to be framed in terms of collective
freedoms and democracy. It finds that four of the five EU member states
selected for in-depth examination are engaging in some form of large-scale
interception and surveillance of communication data, and identifies parallels and
discrepancies between these programmes and the NSA-run operations. The
study argues that these surveillance programmes do not stand outside the
realm of EU intervention but can be engaged from an EU law perspective via (i)
an understanding of national security in a democratic rule of law framework
where fundamental human rights standards and judicial oversight constitute key
standards; (ii) the risks presented to the internal security of the Union as a
whole as well as the privacy of EU citizens as data owners, and (iii) the potential
spillover into the activities and responsibilities of EU agencies. The study then
presents a set of policy recommendations to the European Parliament