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EU Parliament Supports Suspending US Data Sharing

Posted by Soulskill on from the taking-their-toys-and-going-home dept.

New submitter egladil writes "As seen previously here on Slashdot, the European Parliament was to vote on 'whether existing data sharing agreements between the two continents should be suspended, following allegations that U.S. intelligence spied on E.U. citizens.' With the votes now having been cast, the result is 483 in favor of the resolution and 98 against, while 65 abstained. The resolution in question in part called for the U.S. 'to suspend and review any laws and surveillance programs that "violate the fundamental right of E.U. citizens to privacy and data protection," as well as Europe's "sovereignty and jurisdiction."' It also decided that the E.U. should investigate the surveillance of E.U. citizens, and finally gave backing to the European Commision in case they should decide to suspend the data sharing deals currently in place with the U.S., such as the Passenger Name Record and Terrorist Finance Tracking Program agreements. The question now is whether the E.U. commision will go through with suspending these deals or not."

3 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. ... More effort than ... ? by DavidClarkeHR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, it doesn't seem like much, but it's more than the american people have done in response.

    Or maybe it's not MORE, but it's certainly more visible.

    --
    - Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
    1. Re:... More effort than ... ? by Jade_Wayfarer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Right, even if that doesn't look truly sincere and likely will have no long-lasting consequences for anybody it is still something. Maybe it's one of the positive sides of having this many parties in EU - if "bigger fish" would try to ignore this issue, smaller parties will get more support on the next elections, so everybody has to do something (or, at least, pretend to do something good enough). Pirate Party is surely going to rally their supporters over this issue.

      --
      Absence of proof != proof of absence.
  2. Re:They should buy the data from U.S. instead by Vanderhoth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think that's kind of part of the problem here. The U.S. is far more, and far too, aggressive in collecting data. The E.U., being a collection of countries that have historically spied on each other to very large extents and are now friendly, frowns on that sort of thing. So although I'm sure the E.U. is still doing spying on each other and just putting up this front to cover their tracks. The U.S. got caught because they were greedy for data and careless with it, now they have to pay the piper.

    That'll be 50 cents please.