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."
Let me get this right (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Harmless? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not like this. Only the US and its technology companies have the presense and ubiquity to pull something off at this level and scale.
These are reasons to dump Microsoft and Cisco ASAP. Additionally, to begin looking much more carefully at all US products including cars and aircraft. They should all be treated with suspicion at this point.
Re:Ouch! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't kid yourself about European nations engaging in spying as well, including inside the US and their own neighbors.
Bring out the proof then.
This isn't the first time that the US has been caught with this kind of shit and there have been several cases where the US has used illegally gathered information to get favorable deals during business negotiations rather than to just use it for national security issues.
I suspect that you only can find information of French being in the same club and even then only as a response to shit the US spies did against them.
Re:Harmless? (Score:5, Interesting)
I second that. There is no harm here, only good. It is long overdue that the EU starts crawling out of the American arse. The only EU country that is an ally to the USA is the UK. Everyone else are more like vassals.
Re:Let me get this right (Score:4, Interesting)
The US is spying on EU citizens.
The Brits are spying on EU citizens.
Therefore, for the EU to be upset at the US is foolish.
How do you arrive at this conclusion? Is it the "everyone else is doing it as well" argument the rest of us grew out of when we were 3?
Re:Evidently... (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, so we will have to do something with more impact, like not buying any US fighter planes anymore. That JSF is expensive rubbish anyway, so that's a double win for the EU. Bit of course nothing like those will happen. The lap dog will yap a few times, growl a bit and then curl up in the US's lap again.
Re:Ouch! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't kid yourself about European nations engaging in spying as well, including inside the US and their own neighbors.
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.
however, this isn't about even that kind of information trading. this is just about the EU providing things like flight passenger lists for european flights to americans, providing our bank statements to americans.. that was done pretty much just as goodwill for the "war on terror" effort. now it's getting obvious and over the table that the data isn't being kept with any sanctity - that once the data goes to usa they don't give a fuck about where it came from since it's from outside the usa they think they can do anything with it.
so yeah, fuck off. abusing privileges tends to end up in losing them. if you can't be bothered to put on any legal rules on access to the data even then why the fuck should we be providing you with all our data which could be used among other things to manipulate stock markets? why?
Re:Let me get this right (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's right there in the article:
That the UK did this is also something they're looking at.
That's exactly what they're suggesting.
There's also this:
As usual, the US won't sign an agreement which says a US entity would have to face laws in other countries, but expect they will get access to those laws when convenient.
It's a one-sided arrangement that isn't working for anyone but the US, and I believe you're going to start seeing countries deciding they're not going to sign up for any more of those. I think people are getting fed up with having terms dictated to them, and aren't going to be willing to keep doing it.
Re:Harmless? (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact of the matter is that Europe has long been dependent on the US for filling the gap in Europe's defenses since European nations for the most part don't meet the level of defense spending agreed to by treaty.
That is nonsense. The need for a NATO membership is no longer there for European nations since December 1991. The EU NATO members could to leave NATO today and shut down all the US military bases here EU defensive capabilities would still be more than sufficient against any imaginable threat with the only exception possibly being the US of A. It could be argued that the biggest strategic threat to EU and its financial as well as territorial independence is the permanent presence of US armed forces in UK, Germany, Italy and so forth totaling 69661 US military personnel.
Re:Let me get this right (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess it's all a matter of how much in terms of for instance working rights already exist within a nation. My concern with the EU is rather that it erodes our working rights, civil liberties and environmental regulations. For instance the Laval judgement prohibiting unions from interfering with the ongoing exploitation of EU citizens working in our country and the subsequent social dumping: in my view everyone who works in Sweden should have the same rights to a decent wage, vacation, union representation, etc, but this is not the opinion of the EU, they want to create a subclass of people who don't have the same rights as everyone else simply because they are not citizens of this country. It's the neoliberals who are in control of the EU, they have no interest in helping you maintain your workers rights.
Re:Harmless? (Score:5, Interesting)
I third that (is that a thing?). As a UK citizen I do not feel me or my country has been harmed by Snowden's revelations at all, a few irresponsible individuals may have been harmed such as the management in GCHQ who seem to have broken the law but that's a different thing.
For British citizens it's a good thing because it shows how we don't need to waste billions on the Interception Modernisation Program because GCHQ have been doing it anyway and it still didn't stop terrorists.
It also means we're aware of criminality in our political and intelligence classes and it's much better to know crimes have been committed even if nothing is done about them to be blissfully unaware of the fact because it both better informs you who not to vote for and it acts as ammunition against these people getting their own way on other things that are against the public interest in future lessening their capacity to pull them off.
So yes this is an excellent thing all around, even for those of us in countries that have been embarrassed by the revelations. I didn't vote for this, I explicitly voted against it by voting Lib Dem last election and so did everyone who voted Tory who were also against the policy and we were, combined, over 50% of the electorate, although the Tories have tried to backtrack the Lib Dems have at least stood their ground to kill the IMP twice now which is exactly what the majority of the electorate voted for in this democracy. If GCHQ is going ahead and doing this against the will of the majority of the electorate and against the majority of politicians in power through the published election policies of their parties then we the electorate have a fundamental right to know.
Thank you Snowden for fulfilling that right when vested interests would go against our democratic will and deny us it.
Re:Ouch! (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems the Europeans see a difference between the ancient and honorable spying of one government on another and wholesale invasion of every citizen's privacy. The USA has gone way beyond what has always been considered accepted practice.
If the EU does stop the PNR, I doubt it will affect air travel to the USA for very long. Too much of USA financial activities are tied up in airlines, and the airlines will not be profitable without the European routes. If the EU takes this step, it will force a conflict in the USA between profit mongers and security mongers. And in the USA, profit always trumps everything else.
Now you pissed me off (Score:5, Interesting)
How poorly you know you history... it's sickening.
Did you know the reason why so many Jews were murdered in the Netherlands, many more (proportionally) than in other occupied countries? It was because the Amsterdam city government had a detailed database of the people, including religion, so that when the government was taken over by the Nazis in 1940, they only had too look up the addresses of the Jews. (Amsterdam has historically had lots of Jews that fled from Spain in previous centuries I believe). One of the most courageous terrorist acts in the 2nd world war in the Netherlands was the assault on the Amsterdam population register in 1943 (in Dutch) [wikipedia.org]; the attackers wanted to prevent this government database to be used for genocide. They all got a neckshot as thanks for it (look up Waalsdorpervlakte [wikipedia.org]).
And now, l' histoire se repête... the current USA government under Obama is collecting a massive database on *everyone*, no doubt including their religious beliefs (could be Muslims for all you know!). And you're fine with that. And you just have to wait to see how all this data is going to be used in 10, 20, 50 years, by Michèle Bachmann or Nehemiah Scudder or I don't know who you want to elect as president when the going gets tough. Stupid.
N.B. although many cowardly Dutch betrayed their Jewish neighbours, many others got the Yad Vashem award [wikipedia.org]. And most of my people's ancestors just "hid intheir houses with the curtains closed" as was most prudent and sensible.