CENTRUM FOR RATTVISA v. SWEDEN - 35252/08 (Judgment : Preliminary objection joined to merits and dismissed : Third Section)

This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.

Branko Lubarda, President, Helena Jäderblom, Helen Keller, Pere Pastor Vilanova, Alena Poláčková, Georgios A. Serghides, Jolien Schukking, judges, and Stephen Phillips, Section Registrar,

"The purposes for which permits to conduct signals intelligence may be granted are listed in eight points. The first point concerns external military threats to the country. Military threats include not only imminent threats, such as threats of invasion, but also phenomena that may in the long term develop into security threats. Consequently, the wording covers the surveying of military capabilities and capacities in our vicinity.

The second point comprises both surveying necessary to provide an adequate basis for a decision whether to participate in international peacekeeping or humanitarian missions and surveying performed during ongoing missions concerning threats to Swedish personnel or other Swedish interests.

The third point refers to strategic surveying of international terrorism or other serious cross-border crime, such as drug or human trafficking of such severity that it may threaten significant national interests. The task of signals intelligence in relation to such activities is to survey them from a foreign and security policy perspective; the intelligence needed to combat the criminal activity operatively is primarily the responsibility of the police.