Ireland want ECJ to review data retention

As they threatened in the immediate aftermath of the passing of the data retention directive, the Irish government have decided to challenge the directive in the European Court of Justice. Technicaly the challenge is on procedural grounds and given the Irish mastery of these things will probably succeed but the real reason for the challenge is that they feel the directive is cramping their style domestically in the mass surveillance stakes. The Irish government originally, with the UK, wanted a seven year EU data retention regime. They settled for three years in Irish law and feel that the EU directive could muddy the domestic surveillance waters unnecessarily in that regard.