How Poland’s intrusive new spying law could bug world leaders at NATO summit

Covert snooping permitted on any foreigner for up to three months without court order.

 Jennifer Baker

UK prime minister David Cameron giving plenty of side-eye at the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland on July 8, 2016.

Kayhan Ozer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Polish spies could be secretly eyeballing world leaders attending the NATO summit in Warsaw, but it's impossible to know if such snooping is taking place—all thanks to a new law that came into force just last week.
The new anti-terrorism legislation was signed by Polish president Andrzej Duda on June 22. It came into force one week later. Under the law, secret surveillance may be carried out on any foreigner for up to three months without a court order. This includes undercover audio and video taping, bugging private premises, and accessing private electronic and phone communications.
National leaders including British Prime Minister David Cameron, US President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who will face tough questions over his decision not to invest in military aircraft), German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Francois Hollande are all in the Polish capital for the summit over the next few days.
The new law, which also allows police to block online content, and gives the Internal Security Agency (ABW) free access to all public databases, has faced tough criticism from civil liberties' groups including Amnesty International Poland, the Panoptykon Foundation, and the Polish data protection authority as well as the country’s own human rights' commissioner Adam Bodnar.
More than 20 MEPs have also raised questions about the law. They have asked the European Commission to examine whether it believes the new anti-terrorism law “to be compatible with the provisions of EC law, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the case law of the Court of Justice?”
On Wednesday, US organisation Human Rights First wrote to president Obama to urge him to raise concerns directly with Polish officials while in Warsaw, saying the law contains measures that are inconsistent with the Polish Constitution and with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The law also allows police to collect foreigners’ fingerprints, biometric photos, and DNA if their identity is “doubtful” and will require customers to present identification to purchase pre-paid phone cards and pre-paid phones.

Enlarge / Look closely enough, and you'll see that Cyber Norms (championed by Microsoft at the NATO summit) are everywhere.

Over at the NATO summit, meanwhile, European Council head Donald Tusk, EC president Jean-Claude Juncker, and NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg issued a joint statement vowing to “expand our coordination on cyber security and defence including in the context of our missions and operations, exercises and on education and training.”
“It makes sense to work more closely together,” said Tusk.
He added: “This is why we intend to improve our interaction, to intensify intelligence sharing among our staffs and to conduct parallel and coordinated exercises. At stake is real life: our critical infrastructure could be attacked, our banking systems could be hacked, or our citizens could be exposed to disinformation campaigns via social networks.”

Microsoft took the opportunity to chime in with a blog post entitled "The role of cybernorms in preventing digital warfare," which talks about a new white paper published by the software giant to coincide with discussions at the NATO summit.