Police surveillance of phone and internet now allowed under new pandemic law in Bulgaria

Police surveillance of phone and internet now allowed under new pandemic law in Bulgaria

Those of you that are receiving our monthly printed report, already know of several proceedings in Eastern Europe and beyond as following. The new Bill on Religions voted in Bulgaria 2019, allows only “registered” ministers to minister in their respective denominations. The Social Service Act (Jan-Jun, 2020) allows social services to act upon an anonymous complaint to cease children and put them in a foster-home for up to 30-days until the legal parent is proven innocent in court. But none of these matches this current development…

As of today (March 25, 2020) under the current COVID-19 quarantine, the newly voted emergency law allows for the authorities to monitor telephone and internet activities. Data obtained from internet or telephone monitoring will be stored for six months, not twelve as had been previously provided. There will be judicial control over the requests for extension of the period for data storage, but no judge or court order is needed for obtaining of the initial phone or internet records.

The good news?

They tell us this is just a temporary measure until the virus goes away.

The rest is yet to come…