Facebook Faces PRISM Data Investigation In Ireland

judgecorp writes "Facebook's links to the NSA's PRISM program could be investigated in Ireland, thanks to the persistence of some Austrian law students. The group has challenged Facebook in Europe as it has its regional headquarters there for tax reasons. 'The [Data Protection Commissioner] simply wanted to get this hot potato off his table instead of doing his job. But when it comes to the fundamental rights of millions of users and the biggest surveillance scandal in years, he will have to take responsibility and do something about it,' said the leader of the student group, Max Schrems."

Comments

Re: what is dpc

[des_irl]

the Data Protection Commissioner

Re:what is dpc

[duke_cheetah2003]

Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC)

Potatoes

[wonkey_monkey]

The DPC simply wanted to get this hot potato off his table

I thought the Irish liked potatoes.

Re:Quick, somebody do something!

[Opportunist]

What gave it away? Sloppy work 'cause nobody gives a fuck anymore. Why bother hiding that you're spying on the people after you noticed that, hey, the people don't care?

Wouldn't you feel a bit let down? I mean, think about it, you spend resources, time and energy on hiding that you're essentially putting your citizens under total surveillance, you enjoy how you manage to deceive and fool your population, only to notice that the main reason it worked was that nobody gives a shit?

That must hurt some egos, really. And of course they go "ffft, why bother with stealth, they don't appreciate it at all!"

Email and Social Network for Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is a European Email and Social Network company. One that we know won't offer back doors to the US Security Organisations. One that is free from interference

Re:Email and Social Network for Europe

[Lennie]

Federated or disitributed is the only solution.

Everything else is useless. As Eben Moglen would say: everything can keep their own logs.

Re:Email and Social Network for Europe

[JaredOfEuropa]

How about one without back doors toany security organisations?

Same problem with that proposed new EU law: if adopted, it will forbid companies to share data to non-EU law enforcement agencies without an EU judge approving the matter. I am much in favour of this idea: if the law does not compel you to share data, you are forbidden to share it; none of this voluntary cooperation crap. But I was disappointed to note that no-one spoke up to make the law universal, i.e. to also forbid voluntary sharing with EU-based agencies.

Re:Email and Social Network for Europe

[jalopezp]

Yeah, but it's not up to the average user to get the network going. It is the technically proficient that should install diaspora, if enough of us have a server signing up won't be difficult. And as time passes and the network grows, diaspora will become easier to install. Walk throughs get written, makeuseof and lifehacker write articles, then some of the steps get automated as more people post the subtleties of their particular configuration, and finally you get something that's as easy as installing mint.

I dislike it when technical people complain about average users finding things difficult that average users shouldn't be doing anyway. It's not their job, dummy, if we want a better network it's up to us to build it. What do we run servers for anyway?

Re:HA-ha!

[Sique]

In this case, setting up their EU headquarters in any other EU state wouldn't have made a difference, because Data Protection laws are similar through the whole EU. Setting up country headquarters in each country they are operating in would have made it more easy for Max Schrems to go after them, as he would have filed the complaint in his home country.

We should rather say: "See, even your tax and judical review dodging schemes didn't help you."

Re:Quick, somebody do something!

[Anonymous Coward]

What gave it away? Sloppy work 'cause nobody gives a fuck anymore. Why bother hiding that you're spying on the people after you noticed that, hey, the people don't care?

Wouldn't you feel a bit let down? I mean, think about it, you spend resources, time and energy on hiding that you're essentially putting your citizens under total surveillance, you enjoy how you manage to deceive and fool your population, only to notice that the main reason it worked was that nobody gives a shit?

That must hurt some egos, really. And of course they go "ffft, why bother with stealth, they don't appreciate it at all!"

The more central and pertinent issue might be that people feel powerless and don't know how to respond to such a broad and overarching system of checks that were unknown to them until recently. The mouse does not complain about the maze because the mouse knows no better. Cheese, wheels and conditioning.

God bless America.

Re:Quick, somebody do something!

[Opportunist]

The main reason the EU powers that are are so outraged about the spying is simply that it happens TO them, not BY them.

Merkel (German chancellor) just yesterday found out that her cell was bugged by the NSA. The outrage was all over the place. Just a year ago the total surveillance of Germans on the internet was "without alternative".

Don't ever think anyone of the polidroids that now get irate over the wholesale spying wouldn't do it to you in the blink of an eye. They only hate if if it's done ON them, but they love to have it done BY them.

Re:Quick, somebody do something!

[gbjbaanb]

someone needs to reveal that Obama's phone was tapped by, say, the Korean government. Then, surely we'd see the American government continue to say how perfectly reasonable and normal phone interception of world leaders is.