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EU To Vote On Suspension of Data Sharing With US
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."
Don't blame the messenger.
The root of the problem are the far reaching spying activities of the NSA, not the fact that somebody blew the whistle.
Don't kid yourself about European nations engaging in spying as well, including inside the US and their own neighbors.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Well, it looks like Snowden's actions continue to bear fruit in harming both the US and its allies.
Bull-fucking-shit.
Oh, unless you mean that stopping them from pulling illegal stunts is harm, in which case, fuck you.
What caused harm was the US and UK doing illegal stuff. Do not confuse the messenger with the message.
As a citizen of the UK and therefore EU, I assert that these leaks did good, not harm. How can bringing criminals to account be considered "harmful". How on earth can stopping a massive US over reach in wanting to pile the old haystack every higher with data on EU citizens be considered "harm"?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The US harmed itself with it's egregious spying.
All Snowden did is expose the bullshit. He didn't cause the bullshit. That's squarely on the backs of the NSA and the US government's "secret" legislation.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Evidently, the US doesn't need the data sharing agreements. They seem to be pretty good at getting the data they want with or without any agreements.
Remind them the EU is the largest economy in the world and that we will are morally more entitled to set the rules for the democratic world. Not them, not anymore.
Don't blame the messenger.
The root of the problem are the far reaching spying activities of the NSA, not the fact that somebody blew the whistle.
I wonder how many of the politicians (domestic & foreign) who are demanding investigations based on his revelations are stepping up to the plate and trying to keep him out of prison.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There is an interesting side effect about this data problem: the cloud.
Currently, the biggest cloud providers are based in US.
But due to the NSA disclosure, most companies cannot afford to give their data to outside countries, especially since it's now clear that NSA spied european companies economically.
So local cloud providers will quickly emerge, and this will directly impact Google and Amazon's services.
US clouds cannot be trusted anymore.
I wonder how many of the politicians who won't help him are scared silly on what secrets of theirs may be revealed.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Very luke-warm response from the EU politicians. France will "consider suspending trade negotiations for 2 weeks", The EU will now "suspend data sharing talks". Well 2 big woopdiedoo's. The real trade negotiations are well hidden from the EU PUBLIC (Not he NSA of course :), and the snoopers from the NSA already have our data, there is no need to share. We already give it!
THATS the real issue for Europeans people... WTF don't our politicians CARE about this? That scares me more then the whole snooping.
Yes, but to certain people, it's not that they committed a crime that's the problem, but that it has been reported. The US, and various government agencies, enjoy charging others with crimes...they do not enjoy being charged with crimes themselves...and they react like anyone who has enjoyed privileged immunity to the negatives of their actions for a long period of time, as in, they do not know how to react to being on the other end of the sword, and thus, act like the criminals they've sought to prosecute. It's especially demeaning and humbling to them, as it overturns their own self-image as crusaders of justice ("Wait, we're the villains? That can't be! We're the good guys! You must be the villain!"), as well as forces them to realize that their character assassinations are just that, character assassinations (it's so much easier if the Judge / Jury has never been on the other end of the sword, ever, and thus do not know the effects of even a threat of its use; this makes it easier for the DA to paint an image of a person having criminal mannerisms and behaviors; now they are finding that they've been misled, for much of their lives, about what is and is not evil...and admittedly, that frightens them; what Judge / Jury wishes to admit that they fell for the DA's theatrics, time and time again? Or that innocents were sold into slavery, executed, or otherwise imprisoned on their watch, and with their gracious consent?).
Snowden is not hated because he 'betrayed' the US in any sense of the word, but because he showed people that the US has a dark underbelly. The people copping the 'betrayal / traitor' talk are the people who are afraid...they don't want to be seen not taughting the official story line; keep your head down, repeat the lies that you are told, believe them if you have to, and you will get through this...this is their thinking. To that end, there are, perhaps, more than a handful of politicians who are scared sh*tless that their watercooler talk on their cellphones / secure lines is sitting in a special folder on the NSA Director's personal computer; that fear alone is enough to guarantee their loyalty. And that's not accounting for the digital trickery that a thousand or so programmers, under control of the NSA, can achieve if evidence ever needs to be manufactured.
So this is the problem the NSA is faced with: they are breaking the highest laws of the land to achieve their ends. Theft, murder, rape, lies...all of these are considered necessary in the course of their actions. And no one is willing to tell them "Give it a miss."
I am John Hurt.
The US government has tainted just about everything it touches. In situations like these, a wise person would be more interested in integrity than the pain of change.
Can US based technologies be trusted knowing the things we know? I'm not asking if there are "better alternatives." I'm asking if, knowing what we know today, you have 100% trust in US technology products.
As for better alternatives? There are. Free alternatives. The REAL problem is the pain of transition. And seriously. Pain of transition pales in comparison to the pain of other things to come while we use the tainted and compromised products like confused addicts.
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.
We need another De Gaulle. He gave the finger to the US and to NATO in the sixties, and he absolutely didn't want the UK in the CEE (later to be known as the EU). We don't need Turkey nor Israel in the EU and we certainly don't need the 51st american state either (aka the UK).
Please don't make us (the UK) leave! The EU's the only thing with a chance of preventing further erosion of British citizens' working rights, civil liberties, environment, etc.
Unfortunately, many of the uninformed voters here want to leave :-(
If the EU stops providing the data, and the U.S. blocks flights, how long do you think it will last. The U.S. will realize how much they are being harmed by their tantrum and be forced to stop it. Sure, the EU will suffer a few problems too, but I would think it is more closely linked to other countries in Eurasia and Africa than with North America. America is more reliant on connections to other continents (requiring a lot of air travel) than is Europe. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I hope America lets its business leaders make it a true second rate nation by outsourcing everything. Then they won't have as much weight to throw around. In any case, it's time to stand up to their bullying. The white hat they think they wear has turned dirty grey, at least. It's amazing how treating your friends like enemies can change opinions.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
How is it anything other than pure whistleblowing to disclose secret documents proving that top government officials have been systematically deceiving the public about vital matters and/or skirting if not violating legal and Constitutional limits?
This narrative is being repeated by US military propaganda machine, which unfortunately also includes most of the worlds mass media corporations (I just watched a EU news presenter refer to Snowden as a spy in the same breath as feigning outrage over EU diplomat spying by the NSA).
It is unfortunate that shill accounts like cold fjord (826450) are being given increasing airtime on slashdot, with a long list of incorrect, misleading, and downright deceitful stories being promoted to the front page in this accounts name (with some infrequent light hearted ones sprinkled I for good cover/measure), all with the same or similar propaganda message. Not to mention the untold number of minion accounts used to harvest and mod up the posts.
My only question is, are the slashdot editors complicit? We have already seen multi million dollar propaganda software is up and running to manage accounts like Cold fjord (826450), what is the slashdot moderation system doing to counter such technological advances?
> The US needs a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to privacy.
No, it doesn't. The Constitutional right to privacy is already well established in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#United_States
The problem is that it is not observed.
All the major players spy on each other. Even their allies.
In the past, the convention was to spy on governments or their agencies (who might or might not be spies themselves).
A sledgehammer approach whereby the US imagines that it is somehow OK to spy on citizens of other nations, on a wholesale basis, with no regard to "probable cause" or any of those other convenient elisions is totally unconscionable.
Suspension of data sharing is nothing more than a mumble where real sanctions should be applied. They should be quarantining all human traffic from or to the US, and banning all trade. If the US administration does not choose to operate by civilised rules, then it should be treated as the international pariah that it has become.
"It's a one-sided arrangement that isn't working for anyone but the US"
To be fair the reason the EU and even Russia have these agreements with the US is that they expect in return the US will warn them of terrorist threats on their soil and work with them on intelligence issues. So it's not entirely one-sided, there are benefits, the problem is that the equation is changed and so do those benefits still outweigh the downsides?
It has to be consensual, the EU has no problem working with the US on this basis of intelligence cooperation, and neither does Russia, and neither does anyone else, but if the US then starts spying above and beyond what has agreed then the whole system has to be examined as to whether working with the US is indeed a net positive. The calculation was that when it was limited to those activities designed in legally binding agreements that it was a net positive, but now that it's clear the US' intelligence program has gone way beyond those agreed limits it's no longer clear that the original calculation involved in authorising the intelligence sharing agreements is still valid.
For example, the EU obviously determined that giving up citizen names, addresses, credit cards and so forth to the US was worth it for the intelligence shared back, but now it's clear that the US may have been mining private conversations and other personal information on top of that agreed, potentially mixing it together into one big data mining operation, that calculation has changed, and the EU has to hence re-evaluate that.
Opting to give up citizens personal data for security is one thing because the decision has been made (whether we here on Slashdot like it or not) that doing so is in the net interest of EU citizens, but having that personal data mixed in with illegally gathered trade and personal data that might be used to the detriment of EU citizens and economic interests is a whole different ballgame. Suddenly it's not so clearly in the EU's interest, though I guess perhaps that what you mean when you say it's one sided?
I agree with everything you say though by the way.
It's a figure of speech you pedantic arse. What a waste of a post.
This may come as a surprise to you, but most people regard ongoing abuse as worse than past abuse. Which is probably a big part of why Germany has better relations with its neighbors than Israel does, or why France and the UK maintain cordial ties with most of their former colonies, even those that had to fight a war to become former colonies.
The GCHQ is quite, quite British. The French services have just been outed to act in a similar fashion.
The NSA/GCHQ got caught. In a provable way. Before that there were only suspicions. Rest assured, everybody does it.
Which does NOT make this OK in any way shape or form. Since 9/11(or since the USS Cole incident even) we have been in a permanent state of alarm. 10 years on and all temporary security measures are still in place. All temporary legislation is extended. And it is our own goddam fault.
20 years ago we would have called two public schoolboys who out of a vague sense of dissatisfaction with the American Dream(and because they had no friends)decided to bomb Boston "mad bombers" and locked them away and got on with our lives. Now we watch breathlessly while some talking head reports they may have yelled "allahu akhbar!", call them 'orrible terr'ists and cower behind our officials.
20 years ago we would have called two madmen who in broad daylight committed a stone-age crime for stone-age reasons with stone-age means fucking cavemen and put them behind bars and got on with our lives. But because they called "allahu akhbar" while they hacked away with machetes we call them 'orrible terr'ists and start an enquirey why oh why MI5, MI6, GCHQ and other letters too haven't done anything to stop those two bozos.
Then this Snowden guy turns up and tells world "this is what your security circus costs you in personal freedoms and money" and we call bloody murder.
Frankly I am much more terrified that kids are run over buy a truck than blown to smithereens by 'orrible terr'ists. And rightfully so given the state traffic in front of my house is in.
We have been neutered in the past 20 years and now we wonder why we have not got any balls no more. Happy Fourth to you guys in the US. The rest of the western world also has its "where have our balls gone to" day today. The first truly international Fourth of July is now.
20 minutes into the future
There comes a point where quantitative increases in an activity qualitatively change that activity. The USA has gone well beyond that point in its spying and snooping.
The NSA database is an open invitation to abuse. Sooner or later, lists will be compiled from these databases to be sold to corporations or used by political action groups, or vigilantes, next year's equivalent of the KKK, some "church" like the Scientologists to harrass their foes, or the highly moral Catholic Church to smother their latest child abuse scandal. It does not matter what the intentions of those who have set up the NSA database might be. What matters is that no human institution, not even churches with their emphasis on moral principles, is secure against the abuses that those without ethical constraints will inflict on the innocent given the opportunity and the possibility of some kind of profit, or some way to avoid a disturbance in the smooth pleasures of their lives.
The NSA database provides the opportunity for all kinds of abuse to be made by those with no moral encumbrances. The NSA has less capability of screening its database operatives for moral integrity than the Catholic Church has always had in screening its Bishops. That database is going to be abused.
Consider this: If Snowden at his low level of access could have garnered so much data, then how likely is it that someone with an even lower level of clearance could build a list of individuals who have had email contacts with cancer clinics? And how much would that list be worth to an insurance broker who wanted to exclude higher risk customers?
The NSA and any other rogue instruments of the USA government need to reigned in. Those civil servants who do not understand the commitment to upholding the USA Constitution need to be drummed out of office, if not sent to prison for violation of their oaths of office. Mechanisms may need to be created to prevent anything like this dangerous situation from happening again.
There is no excuse for creating this kind of terrible situation. The USA can survive any amount of terrorist activity: it is a strong country even though at times it seems like it is more concerned with safety than it is with liberty. But the USA cannot survive the corruption of its Constitution by elements within its Civil Service.
Will