Five years ago data retention directive was adopted, introducing mandatory retention of the telecommunications of all citizens and resident of European Union. Since that time privacy movement against data retention in many European states has risen, national constitutional courts in Romania, Czech Republic and Germany have declared data retention laws illegal and case against directive is pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Civil society representatives, including Katarzyna Szymielewicz (Panoptykon Foundation), discuss problems regarding data retention directive, its evaluation and actions taken and needed to be taken to change European law in accordance with human rights.

We are fast approaching an anniversary of first disclosures made by Edward Snowden. Even though the fundaments of our trust in democratic institutions and human rights safeguards have been shaken, political reality as seen from the European perspective remains more or less intact. What may seem even more frustrating, our understanding of the real politics behind mass surveillance programmes as revealed by Snowden remains limited.

In 2013, we learned digital surveillance by the world’s governments has no limits. The NSA and other intelligence agencies are capturing our phone calls, tracking our location, peering into our contacts, and collecting our emails. They do this in secret, without adequate public oversight, and in violation of our human rights. We cannot tolerate this anymore. On Tuesday February 11, the world is fighting back.

Today a coalition of three Polish NGOs are submitting 100 detailed questions to the Polish authorities relating to the Prism affair.

Poland celebrated its 25 years of democracy recently. In those two and a half decades, among other changes, most public institutions in Poland have got more or less used to citizens' control. It has taken years of advocacy and watchdog activity, as well as a number of court cases to decide whether a given piece of information is actually “public”. But this investment is now paying off: today even some of the most secret of all secret services answer freedom of information requests concerning their work. There is, however, a stain in the image: one agency – Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) – that keeps refusing to disclose any kind of information about its activity. Their approach is a reminder of much deeper and systemic problem faced by Polish authorities: the uncontrolled and uncoordinated secret services.