Prague, Aug 13 (CTK) – The new Czech bill on intelligence services, which widens their powers, dangerously attacks people’s privacy and personal freedoms, and its eager promotion by the interior minister and two senators on Wednesday was embarrassing, Miroslav Korecky writes in Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) Thursday.
The three politicians, with their rhetoric, would definitively be useful to anyone who would want to change the Czech Republic from parliamentary democracy to a tough dictatorship, Korecky writes sarcastically, referring to Interior Minister Milan Chovanec, Senate security committee chairman Frantisek Bublan and the constitutional and legal committee chairman Miroslav Antl (all Social Democrats, CSSD).
The three defended the government-sponsored bill on intelligence services with unexpected eloquence, Korecky says.
The bill, which was discussed on the Czech scene for several months and made it through the government and the Chamber of Deputies before appearing on the agenda of the Senate session on Wednesday, grants new powers to secret services.
The services will be able to gain, easily and without a court permission, information about people from their tax returns, banking accounts and telecommunication companies, Korecky writes.
The law dangerously attacks people’s privacy and personal freedoms. It sailed through the government and the lower house of parliament smoothly, because tact and respect for privacy are no priorities in the present period of a pending variety of threats, Korecky writes.
On Wednesday, the bill was discussed by the Senate as the last instance, before the president’s signature, that could block the bill’s definitive adoption and implementation, Korecky continues.
Compared with lower house deputies, the work of senators is widely viewed as less busy. They could be expected to consider the bill thoroughly, mainly its impact on people’s freedom and privacy, Korecky writes.
That is why the well-coordinated trio of Chovanec-Bublan-Antl stood up in support for the bill in the upper house, he continues.
Chovanec appeared as a representative of the bill’s submitter, the prime minister (in fact, however, the bill was drafted by the intelligence services themselves), Korecky says.
Bublan, former head of the intelligence service (UZSI, 2001-2004) and former interior minister (2004-2006), advocated the bill in his current capacity as the Senate security committee chairman.
Antl, a former prosecutor, former deputy police president and former head of the Interior Ministry’s investigation office, joined the discussion as the Senate constitutional and legal committee chairman, Korecky writes.
They together formed an optimal “saint trinity” patrons of people’s personal freedoms, he says ironically.
Chovanec, in his “laudation” for the new bill, said the secret services, which spy on people’s privacy, are “ours” and their goal is to gain information for the benefit of the state.
Bublan asserted that the widened powers of secret services mean nothing but the exchange of information among various institutions that are all interested in boosting the country’s security.
Antl, for his part, warned against the new bill being demonised, Korecky writes.
The bill finally made it comfortably through the upper house. Nevertheless, while discussing it, the senators touched on the possible cutting of freedoms at least, unlike the apathetic lower house deputies, Korecky writes.
