By Ton Siedsma and Evelyn Austin, EDRi member Bits of Freedom, The Netherlands
On 29 April, the final text for the Dutch dragnet surveillance bill was leaked. It turns out that Minister of the Dutch Interior Ronald Plasterk is still bent on granting the secret services the power to carry out bulk interception of innocent citizens’ communications.

By Diego Naranjo, EDRi
The European Parliament (EP) legal services last week presented an opinion on the Court of Justice of the EU’s (CJEU) ruling on the Data Retention Directive (DRD) and its implications. The opinion, after restating the principles that are essential to permit any interference on fundamental rights (proportionality, justification and necessity), answered specific questions raised by the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.

On 5 January 2015, PEN American Center published a report “Global chilling: The impact of mass surveillance on international writers”. The report introduces the results of a survey of writers, to investigate how mass surveillance influences their thinking, research and writing, as well as their views of government surveillance by the US and its impact around the world. In total 772 writers from 50 countries completed the survey.

On 8 April 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found the the 2006 EU Directive on mandatory data retention was unlawful and had been so since the day it was passed. The judgment followed a critical Opinion of the Court's Advocate-General delivered on 12 December 2013.  The CJEU judgment is damning in its rejection of mass surveillance based on the retention of data on every communication by everyone resident in the whole EU.