While the European Union was Sleeping, the Data Retention Directive Was Passed: The Political Consequences of Mandatory Data Retention

This article examines the political consequences of mass data retention. The objectives of this article are two-fold. It first assesses the situation that might have been expected to occur in the European Union as a result of the implementation of a mass surveillance measure, Directive 2006/24/EC. Usually, measures that affect all citizens invite political resistance. As such, one might have expected that as a result of EU-wide data retention, mass resistance of this measure would ensue. Yet, this situation did not arise. According-ly, the second task of this article is to explore the current situation in the European Union and explain why public resistance to a mass surveillance measure was largely absent.