EU Overturns Agreement With US On Banking Data 214
Following the lead of the civil liberties committee which last week recommended dropping it (against the wishes of the US), qmaqdk writes "The EU parliament overturned the previous agreement with the US which allowed US intelligence agencies to access EU banking data."
A good start! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a shame that similar action won't be forthcoming when it comes to the lopsided extradition treaties though.
N.B. These don't apply to all EU member states but are particularly bad with our spineless foreign office.
Re:Cool, now nobody has to pay taxes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmmm, I was going to tear you an new one crying BS on high taxes & unemployment (the US & EU have essentially the same unemployment)...then I saw why everyone wants to claim residence in Monaco.
http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Monaco/Taxes-and-Costs [globalpropertyguide.com]
Personal income tax: 0%.
Soon a new US law (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh, it's more sinister than that... (Score:4, Interesting)
As a US citizen, the first thing that came to mind when I read this was "WHOO HOO!"
About the only ones that are going "Oh no!" are the people in my government that feel that they should be able to get away with/do anything they damned well please, and that the rest of the world should just bend over, take it, and like it.
Just to be perfectly clear on the matter, I am VERY much opposed to those tactics from my government.
I am VERY pleased to see the power hungry hands and arms of my government get bitch slapped like this. VERY pleased. The concept of "Soveriegnty" when it is applied to "Foriegn nations" is apparently something my government has serious difficulties understanding.
Re:Can someone please explain to me ... (Score:0, Interesting)
Are you talking about Obama or the teleprompter? If you do not know what I'm talking about, just catch him speaking when the teleprompter is down or out of action. In that regard, Bush seems about equal or better then Obama.
Re:Well done! (Score:5, Interesting)
British courts did the right thing this week too- they ruled against the British government/US attempts to cover up US intelligence handed to the UK proving that one of our citizens was tortured before being moved to Guantanamo before being eventually released with no charges.
Turns out British intelligence was aware of the torture, which is why most people assumed our foreign office had such an interest in keeping it covered up in the first place.
Despite American threats to withdraw intelligence sharing if the data was released, our courts ruled that the data should be released, so it's a bit of a double win this week in standing up to oppressive American strong arm tactics of threatening to put us at risk from terrorists if we don't do what they say.
Re:Cool, now nobody has to pay taxes. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm just happy that the guys I helped elect to represent me in the EU are doing their job.
The EU Parliament is the only directly elected EU institution (the members of the European Comission are nominated by countries' governments - and many are in the pockets of some lobbyist or other - and the Council of Europe is made up of representatives from each EU countries' governments) and it is the most consistent defender of things like consumer rights and the privacy of the EU citizens.
I would like to remind every EU Slashdotter that if you are an EU citizen, no mater where you live in the EU (even outside your home country) you can vote for the EU Parliament - most people in the EU are not exercising this right so your vote will be even weightier.
Re:cryptic reasoning (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually the EU loved sharing that data because the strong data protection laws in the EU make it hard for them to search that data, by sharing it to the US and having them share it back all that pesky privacy that the citizenry values so much could be ignored. Only by increasing the power of the elected parts of the EU government was this repealed. It was kicked because the people of the EU don't want that data shared, not because of some political independence talk.
Re:As a US Citizen all I can say is... (Score:1, Interesting)
> nobody in the world stood up to put a stop to the genocide, until the US stepped in
While that's true and embarrassing, it also has to be said that it's the US that has (via its proxies in the NATO, mainly its UK poodle) sabotaged all European attempts to build an EU force. The US doesn't want a strong Europe, unless under its control, so there is always only the NATO to step in. You reap what you sow.
Re:Oh, it's more sinister than that... (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you sure you're not confusing this with other recent controversial agreements, such as the extradition of people like Gary McKinnon? That agreement has been controversial both for being asymmetric and for the low standard of evidence and poor guarantees of a fair trial.
In this case, AIUI, the issue is data protection and privacy. The EU has much stricter rules on these things than the US, and normally the law prohibits exporting such data outside Europe without proper safeguards. The US in general does not provide those legal safeguards, and in this case, it's not even the legitimate users of the data who would be working with it outside the protections, it's a foreign government.
There is simply no reason they should be entitled to claim that information in some unrestricted, open-ended fashion. With the lack of guarantees we have, they could just pass it back to European governments (who may or may not be legally allowed to demand access to that information en masse and without reasonable grounds themselves) or to US-based businesses to give a commercial advantage over their EU-based competitors.
Re:Well done! (Score:4, Interesting)
With regards to the torture thing, we do tend to get these unusual rulings in the UK around election time when there are points to score. I wonder if the ruling would have gone the same way had it happened in June when everyone was still waiting to see which way the wind was blowing.
Re:Well done! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been a bit hit and miss all along really this one though, it's been a fine line- first off the details were going to be released, then they weren't, then they were, then we had to wait for a home office appeal, now the home office finally lost the appeal and they were released.
So to be fair, this one has been swaying either way so long, I don't think that's it.
The oink ruling was a bit more of a pleasant suprise though, although that was trial by jury so I suspect even that ended as it did for different reasons- i.e. the fact that statistically, 3 people in the jury were likely file sharers, and that again, statistically, everyone in the jury knew at least one file sharer. In this respect, the IFPI probably didn't have the benefit of jury ignorance of file sharing on their side.
In this respect, jury trials probably don't bode well for the music industry.
Incorrect - One direction only!!! (Score:3, Interesting)