EU To Vote On Suspension of Data Sharing With US 330
New submitter badzilla writes with a story from ZDnet that says a vote is scheduled in the European Parliament for today, U.S. Independence Day, on "whether existing data sharing agreements between the two continents should be suspended, following allegations that U.S. intelligence spied on EU citizens." One interesting scenario outlined by the article is that it may disrupt air travel between the U.S. and EU: "In the resolution, submitted to the Parliament on Tuesday, more than two-dozen politicians from a range of political parties call the spying 'a serious violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,' and call on the suspension of the Passenger Name Records (PNR) system. Prior to leaving the airport, airlines must make passenger data available to the U.S. Names, dates of birth, addresses, credit or debit card details and seat numbers are among the data — though critics say the information has never helped catch a suspected criminal or terrorist before. Should the PNR system be suspended, it could result in the suspension of flights to the U.S. from European member states."
Re:Let me get this right (Score:2, Informative)
The British are not the EU, in fact they are viewed by most as an US shill inside the EU. In the area of surveillance they are ahead US by quite a bit.
Re:Let me get this right (Score:5, Informative)
Britain and the EU have an odd relationship unlike almost any other country in the EU.
Yes, technically, we are part of it. But we're exempt from other parts associated with it (we don't use the Euro, etc.). We pump more money in than some others and, as compensation, we're allowed to opt-out of certain things.
Also, if you ask people in Britain what it means to go to Europe, it doesn't include touring around Britain. Britain and the EU are - to the British - two separate entities. Even more confusing you have things like the EC and the continent of Europe and lots of other definitions over the years that we are sometimes in, sometimes out.
However, GCHQ has hit a LOT of flak for its actions. The question really is - if what the US does is illegal, and the EU is doing it back, why do we have a formal legal statement of something else entirely? Why bother? Why not just legalise what we do or not? But, ultimately, the attitude is - if we DO share things with you, why distrust us and find things out illegally for your self? And if you do that, why should we bother to trust you or give you anything anyway?
The GCHQ involvement is a side-issue, and you can guarantee that whatever sanctions the US has imposed on it, those on GCHQ will be worse.
But, politics what it is, I find it hard to believe that anything will happen, certainly anything that will affect air travel. More likely a few trade agreements will have more lenient terms than they would have otherwise and promises to clean up, and that'll be the end of it.
Though, I swore off going to the US many years ago after they basically took liberties with what rights they think they have (which include this EU passenger data crap). If I was forced to enter the US now, I'd do so for as short a time as possible and carry no electronic equipment whatsoever and encrypt all communications home. That's the only sensible business choice and has been for years, and it just happens to be the complete antithesis of the intention to collect that data in the first place.
Re:Ouch! (Score:5, Informative)
Our Constitution defines Treason very specifically as giving aid or shelter to an Enemy.
or in levying war against the united states. However, there is an additional element to the "aid and comfort" clause.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
From Cramer v US 325 US 1 (1945) [wikisource.org]
Thus the crime of treason consists of two elements: adherence to the enemy; and rendering him aid and comfort. A citizen intellectually or emotionally may favor the enemy and harbor sympathies or convictions disloyal to this country's policy or interest, but so long as he commits no act of aid and comfort to the enemy, there is no treason. On the other hand, a citizen may take actions, which do aid and comfort the enemy-making a speech critical of the government or opposing its measures, profiteering, striking in defense plants or essential work, and the hundred other things which impair our cohesion and diminish our strength but if there is no adherence to the enemy in this, if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason.
Luckily for the authoritarians, sedition laws--in particular, Seditious Conspiracy [wikipedia.org] have filled in the gaps.
Re:Harmless? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course that would probably result in considerable unpleasantness.
The unpleasantness goes back decades. Look, here's a Slashdot story [slashdot.org] about the EU investigating it from 1998.
This time around they learned that NSA/CIA is spying on their governments, not just their citizens. That's what they're really tweaked about. They've been complicit in spying on their citizens all along - that's what the 'data sharing' agreements are for.
This is just self-appointed elites getting mad at other self-appointed elites for doing to each other what they do to everybody else. You can put the US or the EU in either the subject or the object there and it still works just fine.
What Snowden did is get the elites' press talking about the extant unpleasantness - fifteen years after the alternate press.
Re:Ouch! (Score:5, Informative)
All the major players spy on each other. Even their allies. I think it's expected to happen and only when it becomes public do the players pretend to be outraged.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930418&slug=1696416 [nwsource.com]
Re:Let me get this right (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Side effects (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed, fully.
Recently I had the need of a virtual server - just to run my web site, host my documents, and various other tasks. So searching for this I specifically searched for local Hong Kong companies (which is where I live), to host such a server. And a short search later I found one that offers cloud servers, just what I needed.
A few months ago I was thinking about the same issue - and then I was considering Amazon. I am a customer of Amazon already, for their glacier cold storage service, where I keep back-ups (all encrypted before they leave my systems). They have a good reputation, and overall very good prices, however it being a US company made me not even consider them now.
And that's a direct result of Snowden's revelations.
Re:And another.. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Let me get this right (Score:4, Informative)
We pump more money in than some others and, as compensation, we're allowed to opt-out of certain things.
You make it sound as if the UK is one of the most significant contributors to the EU budget [wikipedia.org]. You get a whopping rebate [wikipedia.org] on your net EU contribution, seen per capita. In 2009 every UK citizen contributed 62.7 EUR to the budget, whereas the Danes had to pay 211 EUR each, which was also the reason Denmark was threatening to veto the budget earlier this year in case they wouldn't get a similar rebate to the UK, Austria and Sweden.
Re:Ouch! (Score:3, Informative)
for most european countries citizens it wouldn't be even legal to be spying on other countries(to do espionage abroad). for NSA faculty it's legal.
so a lot of the intelligence - which isn't a lot at all - we gather is by trading information with others.
I thought it wasn't legal, actually... NSA is for internal, CIA is for external. Kind of like the distinction between MI5 and MI6 in the UK...
Re:Let me get this right (Score:4, Informative)
Per capita is what is important here:
The four largest net contributors in absolute terms are Germany, France, Italy, UK
The four largest net contributors in per capita terms are Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#Net_contributors_and_recipients [wikipedia.org]