EFF – “Today the European Court of Justice declared the EU’s Data Retention Directive invalid, declaring that the mass collection of Internet data in Europe entailed a “wide-ranging and particularly serious interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.” The Directive ordered European states to pass laws that obliged Internet intermediaries to log records on their users’ activity, keep them for up to two years, and provide access to the police and security services. The ECJ joins the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee which last month called upon the United States to refrain from imposing mandatory retention of data by third parties. The decision is a victory for the human rights activists that have fought hard to have the original Europe-wide law—rushed through the European Parliament in 200—re-considered. Digital Rights Ireland, who first launched a lawsuit against the Irish Government against their implementation of the Directive, and AK Vorrat Austria, who organized to reject data retention in Austria, both pursued the issue for many years in the face of concerted opposition from their own governments and officials.”