Articles appearing in the highly reputable 'Vima' newspaper of 5 and 7 December 2004 reveal the discovery of a telephone tapping network set up by the Italian authorities and used to eavesdrop on mobile and fixed telephone conversations by Greek citizens in Greece.

A major difference for example with a national police service is that Europol currently has no executive and investigative powers and carries no weapons: it has no power to conduct wire tapping, house searches or arrests or other police activities which affect the fundamental rights of citizens (apart from the right to privacy, see 3.2.1 below) and which therefore - in addition to requiring an adequate legal basis- have to be under judicial control, e.g. under the control of a public prosecutor or another democratically accountable authority.

the Council and the Commission confirm the principle that costs, arising from legislative measures, incurred in combating crime, should be met by law enforcement agencies; in cases where, according to Union or national law, the cooperation of private entities, such as Internet service providers and network operators, is required for storing data, wiretapping, preservation and other requests which increase costs, these costs must be reimbursed; network operators/service providers must not be held responsible if they are unable to comply with contract obligations or for damages due to law enforcement requests (no liability); in general, ...[+++] notes that the Internet should be available to all and that the cost thereof should therefore be kept at as low a level as possible, in accordance with the conclusions of the Lisbon summit;

One particular project in the first category is a European Union-wide initiative to increase co-operation and co-ordination between the existing telephone hot-lines set up in the Member States to combat child pornography on the Internet.

Networking, research and co-operation between the hot-lines in Europe to increase co-ordination.

There are five essential components to the crisis response/emergency service: telephone crisis lines, mobile crisis outreach, walk-in crisis stabilization services, crisis residential (non-hospital) services, and hospital-based psychiatric emergency services.