ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the principal findings from the research conducted by the King's College London research team on the Securing Europe through Counter-terrorism: Impact, Legitimacy and Effectiveness project (SECILE). The fieldwork undertaken by King's involved three case studies using focus groups on the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), counter-terrorist finance (CTF) and European Union (EU) border control databases (BOR) to report on the perspectives of operational actors on the impact, legitimacy and effectiveness of EU counter-terrorism law and policy. The need for databases and information exchange is seen as vital to ensure European security. The importance of democratic and social legitimization of EU counter-terrorism law and policy was therefore clear to the research participants even if they had significant doubts as to whether the various systems achieve such legitimization at present. The cultivation of a broader sense of legitimacy involves, for the participants, legal processes to vindicate human rights as well as appropriate scrutiny of governmental action.
