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MEPs Vote To Suspend Data Sharing With US
New submitter mrspoonsi writes with this news, excerpted from the BBC: "The European Parliament has voted to suspend the sharing of financial data with the U.S., following allegations that citizens' data was spied on....The European Parliament voted to suspend its Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) agreement with the US, in response to the alleged tapping of EU citizens' bank data held by the Belgian company SWIFT. The agreement granted the U.S. authorities access to bank data for terror-related investigations but leaked documents made public by whistleblower Edward Snowden allege that the global bank transfer network was the target of wider U.S. surveillance."
From article "The vote is non-binding but illustrates MEPs' growing unease [...]" . So parliament showed right amount of outrage, won some brownie points among electorate and managed to do it without pissing off USA. Good job.
In theory we did. The US/UK NATO crypto offers for friendly embassy use was junk from the 1950-90's. It kept the Soviets out but let the NSA and GCHQ in. The UK and US press often hinted at plain text from embassy intercepts over many years. How far back do you want to go:
..."practices the United States uses in gathering intelligence information ... deliberately violating the airspace of other nations ... intercepting and deciphering the secret communications of its own allies ..." ...:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_and_Mitchell_defection 1960?
Thanks to Snowden we have the history needed for the dreamy sock puppets. I saw one offer that the US does not really 'use' the info for finance or domestic political needs.
A huge change from its not possible, would never work, would be found out, the data sets are too large, the US brands would never help, the political and legal protections
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The amount of information obtained in the "french affair" isn't attainable via "tapping cables".
It entails access to switching equipment, call detail records, etc.
This access is via either of two ways:
- Backdoors
- Agents in place that have access to those systems.
It also entails some very fat "pipes" connecting to those systems.
These aren't new issues regarding security (and I don't mean "cyber security").
Maybe the powers that be need to start mandating more security to that part of the infra-structure.
That, and :
- Auditing of software and hardware (and not just rubber-stamping)
- Increased security for physical assets (data-centers, overland cables, etc...)
- And active enforcment of anti-espionage laws
will mitigate the problem.
What won't solve it, and will certeanly lead to more abuse and friction between states, is just shrugging
it of or brushing it under the carpet.