Data wronged

Where Markovski’s comments on piracy and the anti-piracy lobby are light-hearted and sprinkled with an amusement that expresses how absurd he finds the situations he describes, his views on the Bulgarian implementation of the European Data Retention Directive are a lot gloomier.

The police and Interior Ministry background of many of the members of the new Government, combined with the fact that the current opposition cannot oppose the introduction of data retention laws because it was lobbying to get such laws passed while still in power in the previous government, seem to seal the fate of any discussion on this topic in Parliament.

"We may face a data retention law which will be accepted by acclamation. Nobody will be against it," Markovski says.

"Interior Minster Tsvetan Tsvetanov said they are looking to use court approval before using retained data, but the problem is the police will have constant access, without the knowledge of the service provider, to the data that goes through their system. In other words, if they want to use this in court they will get permission from the court. But if they want to use it for something else, be it control, blackmailing, economic interests, they don’t need the court’s permission. So I think people should know that this could and probably would be used against them. Not could, but would. It will be used," Markovski says.

"The thing is, we do have freedom of speech. But if someone finds out that you have published something which someone at some level of the government does not like, no one is going to punish you for publishing it, but they will find a different way to punish you by following your communication," he says.

"The previous Interior Minister [Mihail Mikov] argued that the police needs to act really fast and they don’t have time to go through the court. But even in the current law the minister has the right to give wiretap approval for 24 hours and only then you need to get court approval. Only very few judges have refused approvals for wiretapping. So they are basically saying ‘Look, we are going to be wiretapping you anyway, so why are you wasting our time with this stupid court approval?’ That’s how I read it anyway," Markovski says.

"In Bulgaria it is well known there has been wiretapping, under communism and today. So if we have a history with that, why would you think the government would suddenly say ‘well, we used to do that, but we are not going to do it anymore.’ If we talk about the individuals, the people who actually have been access to it and have been making a lot of money with it, why would they suddenly stop? These are the same people. The companies that used to buy data are the same," he says.

"The government says they do it for the security of the people, which is not always the case.

Or let’s put it this way; while it is the case, in our [Bulgarian] conditions it can also be used for someone’s personal benefit. That is what I am afraid of, because we don’t have a society in this country. At all. We don’t have any mechanism of control over abuse of that database," Markovski says.

"We all know that the US was spying on their own citizens after September 11, even though this was illegal. The difference between there and the EU-proper, as I call it, and here, is that if somebody breaks the law there, whether that is a law enforcement officer or a minister or senator, they could be caught and punished. In Bulgaria there has been no case of anyone going to prison. That is the difference," he says.

In 1997, Markovski wrote an essay entitled "Why nothing is going to change in Bulgaria in the next 25 years". The subtitle of the essay was "If you’re in a bad mood, don’t read this because it is not going to improve".

"I read it again recently and I think it is still true, only that instead of 25 I could probably say 45. Bulgaria is very consistent in not creating the basic principles of modern civilization," he says.

"I used to joke that it is not bad that there will be wiretapping, as long as there is a provision in the law that when you lose your notebook, you can go to the police and get a copy of your communication, then it is fine. Free backup."