Digital Rights Ireland reports that it has launched a legal challenge to data retention laws. They charge that data retention laws -- requiring collection and retention of calling records and Internet communications-related information -- violate data privacy laws and the Declaration of Human Rights.

From the DRI blog:

These mass surveillance laws are a direct, deliberate attack on our right to have a private life, without undue interference by the government. That right is underpinned in the laws of European countries and is also explicitly stated in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Article specifies that public authorities may only interfere with this right in narrowly defined circumstances.

McGarr Solicitors have posted documents filed in the case.

Here in the United States, we don't have data retention laws ... yet. Attorney General Gonzales has been trying to scare ISPs into keeping data, and Congress into laws mandating that they do so. Like the European, he seems to forget that anonymous speech and private association are human rights. Exercise those First Amendment freedoms while you have them -- and use Tor when you don't.