Slashdot Mirror
Angela Merkel Tells US Firms To Meet German Privacy Rules
judgecorp writes "Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has given her backing to proposed European privacy regulations and demanded that U.S. firms should meet German privacy rules. Merkel's stance comes as U.S. firms lobby against strict E.U. privacy proposals — but also follows revelations from Edward Snowden through German newspaper Der Spiegel, that the German authorities are helping the NSA spy on German citizens."
What took Euro politicians so long?
How are these supposed to work? I'm really curious. A country has a bunch of laws to protect its citizens. Then there is this. sometimes huge, apparatus that doesn't need to follow these laws at all. Who ensures that they don't do wrong? And what is the point of having all these laws if they can be circumvented at any time by certain people with the only justification along the lines of "it's in your best interest". or "you don't need to worry about it".
My reading on that is that *if* the new European Commission data privacy rules get passed, then Germany would expect US firms to abide by those rules *for citizens of the EU*. Seems quite reasonable, actually.
Basically it's just an extension of the fact that those same US firms already have to comply with existing privacy rules in various countries around the world. (I seem to recall Google having to blur faces and license plates when it launched Street View in Canada...)
The same government that brought us the "Bundestrojaner" (a trojan to be employed by law enforcement), that did pretty much anything to create Stasi 2.0 is now complaining about someone else doing it to them.
Mrs. Merkel, meet Mr. Kettle.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If American laws apply in the EU, then EU laws should apply in the US.
They can only do this while the US company has some sort of presence in Europe.
As internet speeds increase, the need for a physical presence will disappear.
Good luck getting Google or Facebook to comply if all their datacenters and business locations are only in the US.
Europeans will still want to use the services, so that will be interesting.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Says you. .by at least one person
Not everyone agrees with you.
His name has been put up for the Nobel Peace Prize as of today,
As a US citizen, I applaud him, and think the traitors and criminals are holding gov't. offices.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Europe should not demand anything. Europe should just sue and severely punish those companies that do violate European law. What kind of crappy idea is it to make laws, wait for some foreign company to violate them and only then make demands ? What was the law for in the first place. ?
We are complying with GFR privacy rules and more, by directly spying on your citizens and ours, so you don't have to do it for us.
Sincerely, Redacted.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
... and those criminals that he exposed will run free.
Scum bag. Yes
Criminal. Probably.
Traitor. No
Time to offend someone
Scum bag. Yes
How do you figure that part? There are certainly a number of more profitable things he could have done with this information instead, so he definitely acted selflessly (regardless of whether it was or was not legal and regardless whether you agree with his actions).
The more pressure the US gets from all angles on these types of issues, the better.
You need us more than we need you, so please sit down and STFU.
Weren't there lawsuits filed against Google and Yahoo! in the USA and EU for them turning over data on Chinese dissidents to China's Government. Yes, China's Government may be abusive, but it was required under Chinese law. Why is it important for Google to adhere to Germany's laws but not to China's laws? If Germany's privacy laws require Google to do things that violate America's FISA laws, who's to say who has primacy? If anything, the fact that the majority of Google's servers are in America probably means American law will hold more sway.
The Gospel according to lolcat
N.B. Many in Germany know and feel a social responsibility for the abuses that can come from those making lists. Others should take a lesson.....
The world should pay attention.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Whatever you import from wherever needs to comply with some local regulation.
From ham to cars, from iPhone warranty to software EULAs.
This article looks more like flame bait than actual news!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
US companies are expected to follow the laws of the country they work in. So if they work in the US, even with data from the EU, they are expected to offload anything to any government organisation without asking questions. "for citizens of the EU" is meaningless. Data is data. People are just resources.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I think Merkel deserves a statue in Berlin, not because I like her CDU politics ( I don't) but because she managed to be a hard-working and conscientious(sp?) leader of the Germans in one of the most difficult periods after WWII. Now I'm going to say something sexist, weird and irrational, so you can have a laugh if you disagree.
The fact that she's a woman is, in my honest opinion, of crucial importance in how the credit crisis developed in the EU. Whenever there's a big crisis, the demagogues in every country rise up and try to sway the people with their (usually macho) rhetoric. These are very, very good at politics, at pointing out the errors of the power elite. They may not always have their own solutions, but count on their macho TV imago to do the work. This is especially the case in the appeal to visceral nationalistic feelings; tickling the electorate "it's all the fault of Europe and Germany that we're now so poor! kick the government out and vote for me!".
In the Greek media, Merkel was depicted as wearing a Nazi uniform: "it's all the fault of those bloody German Nazis! Look what they turned our lovely country into!". This has had a certain effect, but the Greek government crawls onward toward solution of their tax problems and Golden Dawn didn't win the election.
I firmly believe this is because of Frau Merkel. She managed to absorb a lot of the hate and didn't reflect it back. I strongly invite you to do the following
Gedankenexperiment
Imagine, that during 2008-2012, Angela Merkel was not the bundeskänzlerin of Germany, but instead Silvio Berlusconi was magically German and had become the bundeskänzler.
Silvio with his macho laugh and attitude and (to him) funny sense of humour.
Are we in WW III yet?
And that's why Angela Merkel deserves a statue despite being a CDU politician: for keeping her country and the other EU countries intact and limping onward more or less functioning, she deserves great praise for keeping the sentiments and heads cool.
I believe it's partially because she looks like your mum (stern and money-worried) instead of your uncle (annoying, rich and a practical-joker).
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
I work for a multinational company that the US Dept. of Justice had a rather expensive legal issue that ended up with a multimillion dollar costs for things that were allegedly done outside the US, by employees who were not citizens of the US, and in no way had anything to do with the US except we also had offices in the US. Go read about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to see how the US can reach out to other countries just because a company does business in the US.
If this can go one way, it should be able to go the other way.
I am convinced that the whole privacy issue is going to play out over hosted services (AKA cloud computing). EU authorities have few means to affect US intelligence practices, but they certainly do have the means to decide which US companies will be allowed to operate inside of Europe. This has nothing to do with where the physical servers are but rather with the ability of a US corporation to enter into a contract with EU citizens. If certain basic rights cannot be guaranteed for their citizens, the EU authorities certainly have the ability to block access to US corporations. This would be an extreme measure, admittedly. Another repercussion is likely to be a reticence of EU corporations to rely on hosted services for any type of sensitive data, which all of the major providers have been promoting aggressively.
I say this having lived an worked for extended periods in both the US and the EU.