E.U. Preps for Fight over Passenger Data 51
narramissic writes "Following last week's signing of a new temporary agreement to pass over airline passenger data to American authorities last week, European Union parliamentarians are gearing up for a fight over data privacy. Sylvia Kaufmann, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), commented that 'The fact that the CIA, an agency whose activities, torturing and kidnapping, this house is investigating in a special committee, will have access to passenger data is the real scandal, especially when one considers that the right of redress held by U.S. citizens is not extended to E.U. citizens.'"
I just read something... (Score:5, Interesting)
Theres an article currently on the BBC about possibly tagging passengers [bbc.co.uk] during flights and around the airport.
Come in number 5, your time is up.
I read something much more sensible :-) (Score:4, Insightful)
This is all rather ironic, given that a security expert in the UK has finally stood up and stated the forbidden-but-obvious [bbc.co.uk]: all the added security doesn't really help, it just creates different (but equally damaging, if not worse) targets.
Sounds very web 2.0 (Score:1)
nothing like examining something on its merits (Score:2)
I'm struggling to understand her opening position on this matter (or why such a blatantly pointed statement is considered "news for nerds").
Re:nothing like examining something on its merits (Score:5, Interesting)
As a nerd/geek, let me tell you that I object to having my digital, or real life rights trampled on so that I can be legally tortured. Heard of Maher Arar? If not, you may want to look that name up and see what the American government did to him based on faulty intelligence shared with them after he was pulled off a plane in New York.
Hi, my name is Pat Riot (Score:3, Funny)
So a few people have to suffer for the good of all. I'd rather be safe than free!
(Come on, you know that's what the ignorant rabid right's going to say in response to this, lol!)
Re:Hi, my name is Pat Riot (Score:5, Insightful)
Those saying that always means that someone else has to suffer. The notion of self-sacrifice does not occur to them.
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But who are you to make that decision for me? I'd prefer to be free and endangered. Life's dangerous. It usually ends lethal. And I prefer to spend the time 'til then in freedom.
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"Freedom" on the other side offers no visible gain financially-wise.
I think that you've got that completely wrong.
Can you even come up with an example (large scale) were lack of freedom has resulted in the production of greater wealth than the equivilant free system?
Ever heard of "free" enterprise or "free" markets?
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He's an ay-rab, for God's sake, he would suffer even worse in his home country!
That's true, he's Canadian.
Well, at least those poor bastards can look forward to global warming.
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Re:nothing like examining something on its merits (Score:5, Insightful)
is, to me, the real killer. Not only should our info (as collected by our governments or their representatives) be given to someone not under the control of our own governments, we will also have no rights with regards to the collected information once it reaches the other party.
I think it is a very Good Thing (tm) that the EU is trying to fight this.
Re:nothing like examining something on its merits (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't you think that handing out private information to an organization known for torturing and kidnapping people is outragous? Especially since EU citizens have no legal protection at all from US abuse of power?
To make it even more pointed, she could have mentioned that the organization is also running secret prisons around the world.
Re:nothing like examining something on its merits (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S. This falls under the category of "Stuff that matters"
Not a problem after all... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh well, in that case there's no problem, since the Republicans [senate.gov] are taking that right away [loc.gov] from US Citizens [blogspot.com]. Now all the DoD has to do is declare you an enemy combatant and there is no proof, no trial, no appeals, and no redress.
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Out of interest, how is that ever going to fly given your Constitution? I can easily believe the legal weasels can trample on the rights of non-US citizens captured outside US soil. I can believe without too much difficulty that they can trample on the rights of non-US citizens captured on US soil; certain areas of the US political system have always suffered from the strange contradiction that it's an important principle to protect basic rights for US citizens, but they're not important for anyone else. Bu
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Having a certain "right" to something doesn't mean that you get it if people with the bigger guns don't agree.
Why people don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
The success of these measures in passing both Congress and the American public in general, lie in that they're perceived as only being applicable to non-citizens.
The Administration tried for a while to assert that it had the authority to detain citizens as "enemy combatants," as in the case of Jose Padilla, but it pretty much has given up this angle. (They more or less threw in the towel and transferred him to Federal prison on conventional charges on the eve of when the USSC might have ruled against it.) They could certainly try doing it again, since no precendent was really set as a result of Padilla, but I suspect that there would be significant public outcry and the opinion of the courts would be rather dim.
Although you make fun of the "strange contradiction" of applying the Constitution only to citizens, I think that's a more popular interpretation than you think. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced that it's not the correct one; I think the Constitution is pretty clear in outlining a relationship between citizens of the United States and their government. The relationship between foreigners and the USG should be goverened by the relationship between the foreign government and the U.S. government, hopefully in some sort of friendly, reciprocal fashion (e.g. 'protect our citizens when on your soil, and we'll protect your citizens while they're here'). If the foreign government doesn't like it, they can always bar their citizens from traveling to the United States, or declare war, or do any of the other things that soverign states do for relief against each other. At any rate, that interpretation of the Constitution isn't quite as outlandish as you make it seem -- it wouldn't surprise me if there were at least some Federal judges who espouse it, however quietly or academically.
Understanding this and taking it into account, I think helps make the response of the American public to the jurisprudential wranglings of the Bush administration more understandable. (Whether you agree with them or not is none of my business, but even if you disagree, understanding can be constructive.) So long as the new rules don't apply to U.S. citizens, the public outcry is limited. The electorate, while not particularly bright, is not quite so stupid as pundits on both the right and the left often make it out to be; they are basically self-interested, more than a trifle xenophobic, and there have been precious few arguments so far showing exactly how the new rules will negatively impact a basic white, middle-class, English-speaking, law-abiding, Christian family. Therefore, why should they care?
Talking about the Constitutional rights of foreigners -- or even making moral appeals about not torturing foreigners -- is not going to and has not impressed a great many Americans, and this is why I think there is not more widespread opposition to the policies of the Bush administration. Show, clearly and unequivocally, how these policies could be used against a typical red-state ethnic and religious majority, and you'd probably spark a change in government overnight.
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Indeed. I understand that your Constitution was intended, in essence, to limit the powers of your government with respect to your people. However, that
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Oddly enough, the whole citizenship thing wasn't defined until much later. If the constitution says "No person ...", it doesn't mean "No citizen ...", and
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This is how it can happen. Because you have no problem believing this, then can just about do anything.
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Which, hopefully, will last about an hour before someone files an injunction against it, and the courts quickly decide that it's unconstitutional.
There is no mechanism by which the US government can pass a law that reduces the constitutional rig
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You can't fight tyranny by becoming a tyrant.
History claims it worked for Abraham Lincoln:
(Wikipedia, Habeas Co [wikipedia.org]
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But, as you point out, it was overturned as illegal. So it didn't actually work for Lincoln (unless I misread the quote you included).
Well, I guess if POTUS is gonna declare war on SCOTUS, that could be an issue. It's one thing for the Russians to dismiss the Vatican; but, as long as the Constitution is upheld to
Don't worry (Score:2)
EU Law: Right to Privacy, Data Retention Laws (Score:3, Interesting)
Franco Frattini, the European Commissioner in charge of justice issues, criticized Parliamentarians for being anti-American. "It's terrorism that is the problem, not the United States of America," he said.
The 9/11 terrorists used stolen passports. Passenger data, credit card reports as well as any secret no-fly lists would have been useless in stopping the terrorist attacks.
Breaking EU privacy laws and giving EU passenger data, credit card histories, Credit Card numbers and credit histories to CIA against the wishes of passengers and EU parliamentarians shows extreme contempt for the EU law and the European court's decision, our legal system and values.
If the EU laws are not respected and enforced by our own government, and respected by the companies who should abide by them, then what good are they?
Why should American law supercede EU law? We are not a part of United States. If USA fines European airlines, EU can fine American airlines double the amount.
Why should CIA's excuses for right-to-spy on EU citizens supercede our right to privacy that is stipulated in EU law?
Why is an EU commissioner advocating for the rights of CIA spies at the cost of EU citizens rights?
no stolen passports (Score:2)
"The Saudi passports the hijackers carried were genuine, and so were the visas to the U.S. But investigators believe the hijackers obtained fresh passports after telling Saudi authorities they had "lost" their old ones, presumably to cover up trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Then, knowing that spanking-new passports would raise questions, the hijackers artificially aged them and forged entry and exit stamps -- probably with old-fashioned rubber stamps and ink p
We want reciprocity... (Score:2)
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Principles get sold out (Score:2)
I don't see an end any time soon to the controversy between those who want to preserve their own rights and those who want to take those rights away in the name
Put your money where your mouth is (Score:2, Insightful)
In r
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Lets not eve