Romanians, split over personal safety and Big Brother laws

A recent INSCOP survey reveals that over half of Romanians, namely 54.7%, wouldn’t give up part of their rights and freedoms to have more personal safety, while only 31.7% would do so. The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), is trying to push the adoption of new laws that would allow it and other state authorities get easier access to clients' personal data stored by telecom companies. The projects are also known as the Big Brother laws. Over 53% believe that state institutions never intercepted their phones, a much higher percentage compared to the 30.3% that think this happened. Most of Romanians are more afraid of criminals than the idea that state institutions could intercept their phones or emails while in 27% don’t worry so much that criminals might hurt them as they are that institutions could intercept their ways of communication. Slightly over 50% of Romanians say they’ve heard about the dispute over the laws related to personal data retention, pre-pay cards and cyber security, also known as the Brig Brother laws. They were adopted by the Parliament but rejected by the Constitutional Court. Almost 40% of Romanians never heard of this subject. However, almost 54% of those who said they’ve heard of this dispute say they don’t know which are the laws’ provisions and why the Constitutional Court rejected them. Only 43.2% say they have this information. Over two-thirds of respondents heard about George Maior’s resignation from the helm of Romania’s Intelligence Service SRI. When it comes to why Maior resigned, Romanian’s opinions are different. Over 35% of those who heard about his resignation say he chose to quit under the pressure of those who were not satisfied with SRI’s involvement in the fight against corruption. Some 15% believe he took this decision as he was not happy with the Constitutional Court’s rule against the Big Brother laws while 11.7% think he resigned because of disagreements with President Klaus Iohannis. 11.6% think it was just the result of his personal desire to leave a position he held for eight years. George Maior resigned in late-January this year. The survey was conducted between February 5 and February 10 on a sample of over 1,000 people, at the request of Adevarul newspaper. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com