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US Twitter Spying May Have Broken EU Privacy Law
Stoobalou writes "A group of European MPs will today push EU bosses to say if the US government breached European privacy laws by snooping on Twitter users with links to whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) will today pose an oral question to the European Commission, seeking clarification from the US on a subpoena demanding the micro-blogging site hand over users' account details."
Such things don't seem to matter to US either..
They subpoenad twitter not for the tweets but for IP logs and private account information pertaining to certain accounts. They basically want to know from which computers and where the users logged in from (ie. the IP), at what times (ie. IP log), and what they did while there. They'll also know the e-mails, passwords, and other information from those accounts.
THAT, my friend, is definitely not public and I think that's a huge breach of privacy even for these reasons because the US not only subpoenad for the WikiLeaks accounts but many others that were associated with the scandal.
Well, I don't want to leave the impression I support the subpoena. I don't, and I believe it is correct for Twitter to fight it.
But be that as it may, if Twitter is a US company, based in the US, it is subject to US law. The EU can butt out.
If the US objected because of French subpoena served against a French company, operating in France, can you imagine the uproar?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Somebody doesn't understand how the US legal system works:
Subpoenas get issues by courts, so there is a "judicial enquiry" and judicial oversight. And there is a potentially illegal act, namely the release of classified information; the prosecutor had to convince the judge of that. The order was by a US court to a US company. Furthermore, the individuals targeted were informed and given an opportunity to object.
In Europe, police would be able to get this information without any judicial oversight, without anybody being informed, and without anybody being able to object.
The complaints by these MEP are unfounded and apparently just being made to score political points; beating up on America is a politically successful strategy in Europe.
Then Europe will send over its vast and powerful army to the US, conquer it, and finally bring democracy to its... er... colonies.
Maybe my dictionary is out of date, but I never have thought that a court ordered subpoena is a "spying" activity. If they broke in to twitter and trolled through data that would be spying.
Looking at the website it's coming from... maybe I understand now why they think a subpoena is "spying". They say the Bradley Manning is currently being tortured by US jailers, and insinuate the subpoena is a front to cover the trail of supposedly confirmed NSA wiretaps 2x blocks from Twitter HQ. Sure sounds like level headed, unbiased facts abound there.
http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/1/8/us-wants-read-wikileakers-twitter-accounts/
Countries generally don't give a flying shit about such clauses. The law always overrides individual agreements.
"In Europe, police would be able to get this information without any judicial oversight, without anybody being informed, and without anybody being able to object."
Wrong. Logs from ISP and company are also subject to the equivalent of subponea. Where the heck did you get this idea that the police could get whatever they want without judicial oversight ?
Well, if found guilty of something in an EU court, they could be levied with a fine. Said fine could be served on any subsidiaries or offices they may have in the EU. Should they not have any such offices (they do), any EU assets they may have could be seized, their directors and/or staff could be constrained from travelling to the EU. A "nuclear option" would be a court order requiring all EU ISPs to block Twitter. For global companies these days, they generally have to abide to some degree to all sorts of laws beyond those of their home country.
Then Twitter can be fined, and if it doesn't pay up, banned from doing business in the EU, and any European assets seized.
Not doing business in the EU would mean no advertising revenue from the EU, which, as an economy bigger than China and the US would massively devalue Twitter. Whilst none of this would stop European users using Twitter, it'd become near impossible to monetize those users.
The US government may find itself no longer privileged enough in European eyes to enjoy access to banking data and so forth for "counter terrorism" purposes and other such privileged data access it enjoys too.
It probably wouldn't ever reach this stage, but it's naive to think that simply because they're a US company, they have no interests in Europe that can't be squeezed if they breach European law. It's also likely if the EU did levy a fine, that Twitter would just pay it anyway, simply because the fine is still going to be less than the long term profits to be obtained from a continued European prescence.
Besides, it's possible that the MEPs in question have no intention of seeing Twitter penalised anyway, more likely they're simply doing this to add pressure to the US government to drop it's request because like many people across the globe, including some in America, they simply believe that subpoena for communication records of a foreign MP just because that MP used an American firm is a step too far. I believe they're probably just sending a message that it's not acceptable, that's all- the US government undoubtedly knows how far the EU could take this if they so decided to.
On the face of it this may be silly as EU law obviously doesn't apply to US companies. That however would be misreading the whole thing. The EU is controlled by two entities the European Parliament and the Commission. The latter writes the laws and proposals and the former votes for or against them.
Members of European Parliament (MEPs) are democratically elected. Their primary problem is that nobody in Europe cares what they do or what they say. The EU decisions are in practice always complex compromises. The UK may vote for privacy laws the Netherlands wants in exchange for increased fishing quotas and the Netherlands wants it because the Dutch government can use it as a political tool for some other purpose. In short political ideology does not exist in the EU. This is a big problem for MEPs as they can't get reelected unless they get enough publicity and look as if they are doing something the voters care about. The system works against them and so on occasion they make loud noises about any issue they think will be of interest to the voters. Given the complex nature of compromises in the EU they seldom have the opportunity to do this. In this case the opportunity they saw was in the word "twitter". They know that voters recognize it and have scrambled to make themselves look like they are doing something decisive in the public interest. It's not real, it's just collecting brownie points from the public and getting their name in the papers. So you can forget about it. It has nothing to do with EU privacy laws or the US or twitter - it's strictly a PR thing.
The other branch of the EU executive and legislative power is the Commission. It has two functions. One is to act in the interest of the entity that controls it - the EU's civil service and the other is to provide a mechanism for national level politicians to get unpopular decisions through. The EU is run and controlled by the EU bureaucracy - it's civil servants. The Commissioners represent primarily the interest of their departments. The interest of the civil service is entirely self serving. They are for sending SWIFT data to the US as it will mean many fact finding trips to the US and other countries for the people in the departments. They are strongly for the introduction of checks and balances for sending the data as it creates more work for the civil service and ultimately increases their budget. The politicians on the national level have no problem with this as their use of the Commission is to get through unpopular legislation. When something popular is introduced it's always handled at the national level and the local politicians take credit for it. When it's something unpopular they simply say "we hate it too, but it's EU legislation, we can't do anything about it".
That's how the system works and it's not easy for the MEPs as they are not civil servants, they are politicians and need publicity and votes while they are not really meant to have any significant political power. That's why there was such an outrage at the EP rejecting a gay bashing candidate for the post of the Commissioner for Justice a few years back. Things like that are not supposed to happen and as a rule they don't. So when you hear that the EP is making an inquiry or that MEPs are making noises about something, you can safely ignore it. It doesn't have to make sense as nothing will ever come of it - they are just trying to get themselves noticed in order to get reelected.
Give it up. It's little more then US bashing.
I mean hell, even the article doesn't say the US violated EU laws, it says some group looking for another 15 minutes of fame is going to asked someone in power to tell them if they violated the law. And according to the article summery, they call these people the bosses wording it as if the entire group is still getting their asses handed to them in dodge ball on the playground at recess from middle school. I mean it's worded as if the question is true and it's attempting to make people believe it without paying attention to the rest of the stuff.
And the F-22 and F-35 are quite excellent aircraft. I don't believe the modern Russian aircraft suck or anything (the Su-35 etc) but the F-22 and F-35 likely do have air superiority in the studies I've seen. This is a silly point anyway, as Britain helped us develop the F-35.
I also am not sure why you think the Abrams is a "joke" compared to the panther. The firepower and electronics of the tanks are quite comparable, as is their speed/weight, but the Abrams has an edge in armor due to the use of depleted uranium, a capability which German manufacturing lacks due to political reasons. Compare the RHA equivalents for both tanks if you don't believe me.
Yes, you're quite correct in asserting most of our military is deployed overseas. Further, recent military cuts have reduced our capability of fighting multiple wars simultaneously. The US however still maintains the deterrence of a large nuclear arsenal, and if attacked and pressed by hostile nation states, I have little doubt we'd use them if we were pushed far enough and it was a matter of survival. Nuclear weapons as an ultimate deterrence make conventional forces seem weak, though it's hard to perform police actions or fight proxy wars with nukes. No, Germany does not have nuclear weapons, but it is not from a lack of trying.
I have great respect for Germany's armed forces throughout history, and Germany's industrial and technological superiority to the US for most of our existence. Today's battlefields and tactics are still defined by German technology.
At the battle of Kasserine Pass where Erwin Rommel defeated a much larger US force, do you think he would've won by being contemptuous and undervaluing the US forces?
Microsoft is a US company but it didn't stop the EU regulating them. Google is a US company but they had to comply when the EU asked for Street View WiFi data gathered in the EU. Any business that wants to operate in the EU has to abide by EU laws, and Twitter is a business that advertises here and does deals with EU companies.
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Considering that the US Navy keeps three years worth of all essential consumables on hand "just in case", not much problem.
Considering that every carrier carries a couple of its own airborne control aircraft (basically, a mini-awacs), not so much of a problem as you might think.
You've got something better than F-22 over there? I'm impressed.
Oddly enough, the US tanks use the same gun as the Leopard, and have better armour. And better engines. Not sure what the Leopard has to make it better. Much less Russian tanks, which M1's have been shooting up in overwhelming ratios since the first Gulf War.
You really want to know? Okay, it reduces to this - no other country in the world (even counting the EU as a country) has any real ability to move troops thousands of miles to attack a hostile shore. So when the vast fleet of transports required to move the EU (or other) army puts to sea, they'll have several weeks of sailing during which submarines will be sinking them, airstrikes will be sinking them (yah, the EU fighters don't have the range to cross the Atlantic to provide a CAP), and then when they get here, they'll have to figure out this whole "land on a hostile shore" experience. While being shot at by pretty much everyone and everything.
Note, for the record, that the last major amphibious attack took place in WW2. The last one big enough to even have a hope of taking on a serious power on its homeland took three years to prepare for (and was that quick because there was a base less than 100 miles from the hostile shore), even with absolute control of the sea and air around the battlefield.
Good luck with achieving such on our Atlantic seaboard with what the EU can bring to bear.
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