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EU Curbs Export of Surveillance Systems
The European Union will curb the export of telephone- and data-interception technology to nations that use the tools to violate human rights, following reports that Western surveillance gear was used to track dissidents in Middle East crackdowns...Bloomberg News reported in August that a monitoring system sold and maintained by European companies had generated text- message transcripts used in the interrogation of a human-rights activist tortured in Bahrain...“It depends on the goodwill of companies to be transparent, and the goodwill of countries to monitor them,” [Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the Parliament] said.