EU Parliament supports the possible suspension of U.S. data sharing agreements

http://www.zdnet.com/eu-votes-to-support-suspending-u-s-data-sharing-agreements-including-passenger-flight-data-7000017677/

by rlpb • 13 years ago

387 103 13 years ago

zdnet.com

michielvoo• 13 years ago

But EC is not suspending any data sharing deals (yet), which could have huge economic effects since it could mean that flights to the US are grounded. But it is my understanding that the US would be the one that would order flights to be grounded if the EU no longer meets the requirements of the data sharing agreement.

smackay• 13 years ago

You know, I'd really like to see what would happen when "push came to shove". It would either tear-off the fig-leaf of terrorism or the rest of the world would really understand that the US government has developed into a paranoid, frightened, bully.

However, more likely is that some deal would be struck (behind closed doors, of course) that would allow business to continue as usual - shutting down most if not all transatlantic commerce would be a gargantuan step for anyone to take. I don't think that would change the long term direction this issue is heading in though. We're either going to end up with court supervised limited snooping and more transparent governments or an all-pervasive surveillance state where absolutely everything is going to be hoovered up and stored for later use.

UPDATE: One of the goals of the European Union is to avoid war on the continent. With the road of economic and political integration riddled with pot-holes of various sizes perhaps the new direction to unite everybody is personal freedom - freedom of movement, freedom of speech, etc. Europe certainly has the history to justify why these are laudable goals. With partner countries such as Iceland (which has Europe's longest running parliament) showing the necessary leadership, the time has come for Old Europe to become Bold Europe.

Svip• 13 years ago

the time has come for Old Europe to become Bold Europe

I like that. But understanding Iceland's position is important. Iceland is due to its position, natural resources and political influence extremely free to do what it likes without threatening its diplomatic relationships.

Iceland can effectively 'show the necessary leadership' because they have little or nothing to lose, at least not as much as their European countries. In addition, Iceland has been blessed (although not currently) with a rather progressive political environment.

Other European countries are unfortunately not so lucky, and they are afraid to risk too much of it by being bold. However, if the European countries gather together to be bold, then the risk is vastly reduced.

But of course, this is one of the purposes of the EU; alone we are weak, together we are strong.

pcrh3• 13 years ago

Old Europe to become Bold Europe.

The country most likely to lead any such move would be Germany; Germans are today extremely well-inoculated against disingenuous reassurances by governments.

tommi• 13 years ago

Good news albeit won't make a big difference for United States. Let's get rid of the SWIFT data sharing while we are it, it's not U.S.'s business.

contingencies• 13 years ago

This.

Also, passenger name record (PNR) information on international carriers where the origin or destination are not the government in question.

flyinRyan3• 13 years ago

Get rid of all the financial data passing to the US! Fuck them, they were the absolute worst player in the financial crisis. How dare they demand that everyone send them all the details of almost all financial dealings.

Vivtek2• 13 years ago

Yeah, when they don't use any of it against bankers or embezzlers - just against online poker players and marijuana buyers.

diminoten4• 13 years ago

Yeah, because some desk analyst in Langley was the cause of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

tehwalrus7• 13 years ago

Good.

I'm also glad they're investigating the criminality of the UK government - I had assumed they would get away with it, rather like extraordinary rendition, because they didn't take the data directly. A big fat fine for Westminster could be just what the doctor ordered here (and I say that as a UK taxpayer.)

Now we just need similar investigations into the NSA under the 4th Amendment - I wonder what the US is waiting for...

arethuza10• 13 years ago

On the subject of extraordinary rendition, I was glad to see an announcement earlier this year that Scottish police are investigating the use of airports in Scotland for CIA flights:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-2278...

I doubt if it will come to anything, but the idea that we had prisoners who were on their way to be tortured transported through our country and we did nothing about it make my blood boil.

tehwalrus7• 13 years ago

One of the few places where I support the death penalty is for "international crimes" - genocide, crimes against humanity, etc. I think official sanction of torture should be on that list too.

This puts me in the odd position when the weirdos call "bring back hanging" of saying "yes, but only for politicians."

alan_cx4• 13 years ago

Firstly, thanks, I didnt know that.

Secondly, don't write the Scottish off just yet. They let that Lockerbie bomber go home, and that really annoyed both the UK and US. They did the humane decent thing, despite the pressure, which in the end came to nothing. Remember too the politics between Scotland and the UK. I am fairly sure that if they can prove anything, they will make a big deal out of it.

BTW, makes my blood boil too. Rendition was, and still is, a disgusting abuse of human beings and national power. Kidnap and torture by a state is something that should be internationally outlawed and offenders properly punished. Yes, even former US presidents and UK MP's. I'd like to see both Bush and Blair rendered to an international court and face jail for this. Yeah, I can dream.

alan_cx4• 13 years ago

Hmmm, all that will do is fuel the stupid debate we in the UK have over being in Europe at all. Personally I think the EU should haul us over the coals, not just a fine, but actual sanctions. However, I'm not sure the EU really has the balls to do that. And frankly I don't want to give that nasty UKIP bunch any fuel what so ever.

An issue I see is that actually the UK is more in to this that even the US. Might not have the depth and scope, but certainly the intention, with out even the fig leaf of a constitution. American citizens have some rights to work with, we dont. When you get down to it, we are facilitating the US spying on the EU, as we seem to be some sort of gateway hub between the EU and the US, and we, for some reason I do not understand, favor the US over Europe. While much of the embarrassment is on the US, the Snowden lark puts the UK in a very exposed piggy in the middle position where we might get forced to pick sides. The US can take care of its self, but the UK could be left deservedly politically stranded.

On the other hand, the EU has a lot of its own problems and Im not sure it has the motivation to pick a proper fight with the UK. All we'll probably get is some posturing to appease who ever is complaining, and normal BS will resume.

I have to say, given all that, it rather amuses me that a few years ago Obama was telling the UK it should look more to Europe than the US. Heh, I suppose now we know why: We are the US agent in Europe.

I have to wonder if long term the Snowden leaks are more damaging to the UK than the US. People will still deal with the US because of its economic and military power, neither of which apply to the UK.

tehwalrus7• 13 years ago

If we're "forced to pick sides", I don't think we'll pick the US. The government might want us to, but all it takes is a list of the stuff we all hate about US foreign policy - Drones, Asymmetrical extradition (and Gary McKinnon), Guantanamo Bay, etc etc. That stuff has no mirror in the EU, all they're trying to do is get us to obey our own laws.

I hope the EU has the guts to give us a short, sharp shock - or I fear your last hypothesis, about UK isolation, may be accurate.

lotsofcows2• 13 years ago

"with out even the fig leaf of a constitution"? What? We have a legal system going back almost 800 years to the Magna Carta. Constitutions are for noobs.

Nursie• 13 years ago

I hope we can also get some examination of the safe-harbour agreements that allow the shipping of data to the US, contravening the usual data protection laws, when certain guarantees are given.

Clearly these guarantees are meaningless in today's world.

MarcScott• 13 years ago

This is particular interest to me as a teacher. Suspension of the safe-harbour agreements would mean schools having to shutdown any US based services they use such as Google Apps, where student data is stored.

DavidBradbury• 13 years ago

The problem we have right now is a complacent and ineffectual congress. Most of them don't use the internet and don't really care about it because it doesn't directly affect them. Unless their constituents start complaining (More than just people in their 20's and 30's), they don't have any reason to do anything either. A number of Democrats won't do anything unless Obama starts going against the NSA, and the Republicans that are against it are having trouble convincing others that it is a real issue. Add in a lack of news stations and journalists that are actually willing to investigate and push the Federal Government on the issues and you get a very, very frustrating situation.

eliasmacpherson• 13 years ago

Yesterday, whether this vote would pass was in serious doubt. Now the doubt remains whether it will be put into effect.

_b8r0• 13 years ago

Please note that this is not that the EU supports suspending data sharing agreements, this is simply that the parliament will support it if the EC supports, which it probably won't.

Fuxy• 13 years ago

They took their sweet time i was beginning to think their all a bunch of pussies. I'm all in favor of this even if it puts European citizens in a slightly difficult situation with some potential jobs on the line. Europe needs to have boundaries and spying on its citizens should be unacceptable.

wwhitman4• 13 years ago

Hopefully this will make it easy for the US to stop paying for defense of the EU and spend that money at home.

richtr• 13 years ago

Do you have any sources for this bizarre statement?

Today, any excessive US presence in Europe is most likely a symptom of over-reaching US Foreign Policy rather than something the EU requires.

wwhitman4• 13 years ago

Fine, then we can close all EU bases, save a ton of money and you can defend your own shipping routes, I'm sure you will be fine.

arethuza10• 13 years ago

Who exactly is the US defending the EU from? Have you actually compared the size of the military of the countries in the EU against any possible threats?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_European_Union

mpweiher• 13 years ago

It's a bit more complicated. The US presence has many reasons, not least of which is non-proliferation, with the deal being protection under the US nuclear umbrella in exchange for not going nuclear, which pretty much all of the european countries that haven't done so easily could.

The presence of US troops is partly to give credibility to the assurances of US retaliation if a country is attacked: if you get nuked, our troops get nuked, and yes, we will respond to that. Without the credibility, countries would probably see themselves forced to go nuclear (South Korea has recently made noises in this direction.)

Another reason is, as the first NATO secretary general put it: "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." (purpose of NATO). Germany nowadays is quite a pacifist country, and that's probably an achievement worth keeping. Having lived and worked in a couple of different countries, I am not sure I would want the ruthless German efficiency applied to matters military...again.

pekk2• 13 years ago

I am pretty sure the problem with the Nazis was not that they were exceptionally efficient at war. The problem was rooted in their goals and the means they considered appropriate.

seferphier• 13 years ago

This is great. Finally some consequence to NSA's actions against the government directly given that all the checks and balances are not working.

For example: There are now secret courts and secret judgments that lacks binding power (NSA ignores them anyways). Despite the media revealing more and more lies, the congress does not seem to care (half of them did not attend the NSA talks). The rest that do have little power to stop them or even talk about them at all.

diminoten4• 13 years ago

Congress doesn't care because most Americans don't care.

We want our government to do these things.

leke2• 13 years ago

The UK warn that closing trade negotiations could cause the loss of over 400,000 jobs, but must also realise due to corporate spying, it might have cost the UK much more than 400,000 jobs.

diminoten4• 13 years ago

How?

leke2• 13 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage

ra• 13 years ago

"Should the Commission decide it necessary to suspend the data sharing agreement of passenger details — including personal and sensitive individual data — it could ultimately lead to the grounding of flights between the EU and the U.S."

It's simply not going to happen.

ipsin• 13 years ago

It's worth noting that this is a non-binding resolution, in case it wasn't clear from the article's title:

"the Commission now has the authority from the Parliament to suspend PNR and TFTP, but it falls at the Commission's discretion. Resolutions passed by the Parliament are not legally binding,"

nhaehnle2• 13 years ago

This is a very important point. Democracy is really lacking at a European level, and a large part of that is that the Parliament has almost no real power.

Whether it is sufficient to give the EU Parliament real power is questionable, but if the EU is to become a proper democracy, then giving real power to the parliament is at least necessary.

thomasjames• 13 years ago

Is the irony of this not lost on anyone else? In light of recent events it appears they'll be able to get the data anyway, whether or not it is sent over.

Qantourisc• 13 years ago

Good to hear something good from the EU !

schoash• 13 years ago

they are only supporting? They should immediately cancel them.

EU Parliament supports the possible suspension of U.S. data sharing agreements

Related Stories