EU observer was given advanced access and had combed through the documents in an effort to better understand an EU agency accused of complicity in the violation of fundamental rights and as well as one often shrouded in secrecy.
Frontex has yet to make those public on its own website, although it says plans are underway to publish PAD requests as well as operational briefs sometime next year.
The agency has also in the past been faulted for how it handles such requests, including from ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, the EU’s administrative watchdog.
Frontex obliges people to use an online access portal that is overly restrictive and unjustified, she said in June. The agency had set up the portal at the start of 2020, putting an end to email communication between the agency and the applicant.
Only earlier this week, Human Rights Watch along with digital investigators Border Forensics, issued a report on how Frontex aerial surveillance at sea enables abuse.
They found that out of more than 32,000 people intercepted and returned by the Libyan Coast Guard in 2021, almost a third were facilitated by intelligence gathered by Frontex aerial surveillance (FSA).
One such letter was sent in May of 2020 to the chair of the civil liberties committee, where Leggeri writes that fundamental rights are hard-wired into their operations.
Another letter cites Leggeri as saying that its presence on the border with Hungary and Serbia can “actively contribute to minimize any possible risk of a misuse of force.”
That is an argument that has since been repeated by Kalnaja and the agency’s own fundamental rights officer, Jonas Grimheden.
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