First it'll be pr0n, then the Germans will want Holocaust Denial, the Spanish will want to crack down on anyone who criticises the King, then the Frogs Something else, the Wacky Baccy Jacky will want every other thought crime added for our safety.

I need to be convinced that this is a good idea

That the UK will need another national database just to provide info to this one. Without such a thing we may as well give control of the country to the terrierists.

Sorry , sorreee, we already did, didn't we.

THE DATABASES ARE COMING... hide.....

serious tho,,, do we really need yet another database !!!

mines the one with the MySQL logo.

EU... Government... Database.

*runs for cover*

It will only take one EU G'mnt inbred fucktard responsible for the database to handle the data in an inappropriate way, and that will blow the case for the prosecution.

Let's make it simple - given the news about the UK losing all manner of data - WE DON'T TRUST YOU. WE NEVER WILL. YOU'RE ALL PATHETICALLY INEPT AND SHOULDN'T EVEN BE ALLOWED TO HANDLE A POSITION INVOLVING ANYTHING MORE COMPLEX THAN PISSING YOURSELF IN THE OPEN STREET.

Mine's the splash-resistant one deflecting the output of inbred G'ment officials.

Hmm, so will that include the UK Government's so-called "Extreme Pornography" which is legal in every other EU country...?

Think of Child Porn as the ideal beta testing material -- non-controversial (nobody loves a paedo), sufficient data coverage to get a good test but not enough to swamp the system. Then once the bugs are ironed out.....

Personally I'd take a chance on the neighbor and his private hobby than have this kind of snooping going on. (Lesser of two evils and all that.)

I think this has less to do with crime and more to do with giving the EU a basis for justifying it's own police force. The risk for the EU is that the only way to justify it, is to increase the level of policing and the danger is that Europe becomes like the UK is now. Lots of over prosecuted petty crimes simply to justify the many pseudo police forces that exists.

. . . coming to a train seat near you, real soon.

See Press for details.

If you report child porn in many countries that means you saw it and commited a crime. Reporting it makes no difference. Good way to make criminals of a lot of people who saw something nasty on the web and didn't have the sense just to move on.

While I'd normally rail against this sort of thing, I'd question the effectiveness of any government program with a budget of 300,000 Euros spread across however many member states are in the EU now.

Surely this amount of money will only be enough to fund approximately 1 Eurocrat (without expenses) - there's really no intent here other than to generate headlines along the lines of "Look at us! We're thinking of the children!"

that's just about enough to keep a commission members cousin/lover in vin rouge and

truffe blanc for about 6 months - if they take it easy.

Indeed, let me be the first to invoke Godwin's law and say you don't allow the government to build gas chambers because they're more efficient than lethal injection for capital punishment.

Allowing governments to build the infrastructure which *could* be used for oppression is reckless endangerment.

Child porn is pretty much illegal in all states but what is child porn in the UK might be quite legal in Holland. Ditto for drug offences. Authorities should be policing their own areas according to their own laws, not bumping responsibility (and the cynical would say, costs) up to the EU. That's why we have different nations - so people feel they have some degree of self-determination and control over their lives. A global dictatorship would probably be more efficient than having multiple countries, but it isn't desirable, so lets not start to build it.

As for the public reporting "illegal content", I wouldn't - admitting you downloaded it to your browser is likely to land you in jail for 10 years or more. Even if you wanted to report it, why not just call crimestoppers? Using existing infrastructure has to be cheaper - oh wait then we can't give our corporate sponsors a nice fat contract...

EU database is 300.000 Euro but UK one is £12bn. Slight discrepancy, especially that the former one will span 26 countries...

The discrepancy in costing is due to the Smith constant (50,000), measured in units of political gullibility.