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EU Committee Issues Report On NSA Surveillance; Snowden To Testify
Qedward writes with word that the EU Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee published the draft of their report on the impact of dragnet surveillance by the NSA on EU citizens (PDF). Quoting CIO: "... Members of the European Parliament say that it is 'very doubtful that data collection of such magnitude is only guided by the fight against terrorism,' and that there may be other motives such as political and economic espionage. The document urges EU countries to take legal action against the breach of their sovereignty perpetrated through such mass surveillance programs."
The same committee voted today to allow Edward Snowden to testify before them in a special hearing.
The conclusion of the EU report will be: IT'S NOT FAIR! How come those degeneration AMERICANS get to have all the spying! We'll build our OWN spy network... with blackjack! and hookers!
In fact, just push back the start of the spy network while doubling the budget every couple of years or so and let us have the hookers now!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
nope false alert, not gonna happen.
The internet has grown up, and you should to.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This will surely be as meaningful and effective as most U.N. committee meetings.
For the sarcasmically challenged, I mean not at all.
I'm no expert in EU politics, but I know they meets in Brussels (Belgium), Luxembourg and Strasbourg (France), per Wikipedia. I also know, despite being a dumb amerikkkan, that none of those places are in Russia. Snowden will absolutely be captured if he appears in any of these places and would be a great fool to testify there.
Captcha: funnily
grown-ups know how2too
What if Snowden was a former employee/contractor for GCHQ, and he leaked documents illuminating GCHQ spying on the US, Russia, and other non European nations? Would the EU still allow him to testify, or would they be calling for him to return to face their courts?
Of course they do, because part of the mandate is to look out for US commercial interests in general.
The problem is they use the same program to spy for the terrorists, as they do for the economic and political espionage.
Which means, unless the US is willing to carve out JUST the security stuff (which, they won't), every other country more or less has to block this program on the premise that it's just a widespread "spy on everybody, some of them might be security risks, some of it might be political intel, and some can be given to the corporations".
That's kind of the problem from the perspective of the rest of the world -- any form of cooperation with this spying has far broader ramifications than just national security.
Hell, people here routinely defend it, but increasingly you might see other world governments saying they won't allow you to do it any more (in which case, it will be done anyway, just in a more clandestine manner).
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Couldn't he testify remotely?
Perhaps the EU members will think that.
However, there is a major difference between say, Germany and America. The difference is, the German public will freak out and actually take to the streets.
I am reasonably sure that Germany would exit the EU if such a program was installed.
Same is true for France. They say that France is one of the few countries who does democracy right. The government is scared shitless of the people. Not the other way around like in the US where people fear their government. Hell, in France they will burn an entire city over a small issue.
Of course in England, they are even more willing to give up their rights than Americans.
Slashdot, news for fucking bastards, stuff thats fucked up the ass
News for bastards, huh? You were the first one that hopped on this article.
The ultimate goal with government spying -- besides securing a multi-billion dollar cash flow that can be leveraged for personal gain -- is merely to build a warchest of options for prosecution, should government need to prosecute a citizen in the future. And by "need to prosecute", I mean need to silence, emprison, or murder. Now that there are enough crimes to make every citizen a criminal, this is entirely possible. Ayn Rand had it exactly right: the reason why the law is so absurdly complex is to ensure that every citizen can be prosecuted for something -- anything -- should the need arise.
It's a trap!!!
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
And you're giving him/her what he/she wants.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
If he goes anywhere in Europe, even with the host country's approval and protection, I wouldn't be surprised if he were snatched in a CIA black op.
There was a story a few years ago that showed Boeing was successful in derailing an Airbus deal by using espionage and hacking to gather intelligence on the Airbus proposal, allowing Boeing to cut-in the proposition with their own submissions, finally realizing the deal at the expense of Airbus.
So says the man from America. The country who's population literally could not care less that their own government is spying on them as well AND systematically removing their rights and dismantling their constitution.
But you go on and talk about how stupid and cowardly we in the EU are. After all, we can see how strong your back bone is. After all, it is not we who have the backbones to bomb brown people "into freedom".
I bloody well hope that said testimony is anything but brief—something gives me the impression that he will have a lot to say.
Applebaum's testimony was disappointingly short.
Make sure testifying doesn't violate the terms Putin laid out w.r.t. your visa ("No further harm to the US" yadda yadda).
If the EU wants to get your testimony they can damn well give you political asylum first.
To deny you asylum yet claim your testimony is important, is disingenuous.
They can grant him asylum, sure, but there's a short list of countries that can actually make that stick. Why do you think he's in Russia and not Ecuador or Ireland or some other country that's not run by a real life comic-book supervillain, anyway?
A quick synopsis (so may contain stuff to quibble over) but the meat appears to be the action list (read the original document - link in article - for the rest):
Action 1: Adopt the data protection package
Action 2: Set up an overall agreement ensuring 'proper redress mechanisms' for EU citizens where data is passed to the US for law enforcement purposes.
Action 3: Suspend 'safe harbour' (covering personal data) until the US comply with 'EU highest standards'
Action 4: Suspend the 'TFTP' (Terrorist Finance Tracking Package) until a) Action 2 complete b) the EU have looked into it
Action 5: Worth quoting in full: "Protect the rule of law and the fundamental rights of EU citizens, with a particular focus on threads to the freedom of the press and professional confidentiality (including lawyer-client relationships) as well as enhanced protection for whistleblowers".
Action 6: Develop a european strategy for IT independence (that'll send cold shivers down the spine of certain US companies).
Action 7: Develop the EU as a reference player for a democratic and neutral governance of the internet (my translation: currently it's a US party, we want in on that).
All your ghosts are just false positives.
To what country is Snowden supposed to travel? He'll have to reconsider the possibility of extraordinary rendition.
I hope this helps the EU Committee .
Yours In Cryptography,
K. Trout, C.T.O.
There's these things called telephones. Check it out sometime.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
...and that there may be other motives such as political and economic espionage
Jeez... Ya think? I'll spare us the rant about how much of that has already occurred and jump right to how ashamed I am that my country has embraced such activity on such a scale. I mean, I get that, in business "it's just business" is a tacit rationalization for doing anything that you can get away with to enhance the bottom line, but for my government, who is supposed to at least carry on the illusion that it represents my interests, to give that same excuse is just, well, shameful.
And so does Lindsey Graham likes it too.
And you're giving it what it wants.
FTFY
We the People know this..
Obama and friends still claim this is a 'fake' scandal made up by those evil republicans.
In recent news Snowden was arrested at the EU Committee Conference on Security by member states of NATO on the basis of treaty security violations under pressure from the US Government.
The document urges EU countries to take legal action against the breach of their sovereignty perpetrated through such mass surveillance programs.
What in the hell are they going to do? Tell the world-police on the... well, world-police?
I've been called troll for saying it in the past, but I'll try again here... If anything has come of "the Snowden release", it's only to inspire more hatred for the American government. This will always be taken out on the American people in the end. Assuming that 9/11 wasn't an inside job, and assuming that 9/11 was done by the people that were "charged" with doing so, could their reason have been hatred for "The People" of America, or "The Government" of America? And if that's the case, can we expect more of that same shit? Will it ever stop? Should American forever live in fear, based on the bullshit steps taken by it's "protective" government to stop such actions? It's so silly there aren't words to describe it without seeming like a troll.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
As are you, and as are I.
:P)
The only winning move is not to play, or in this case, post.
(And as you can see, I'm clearly not leading by example.
The EU has ZERO problem with the idea of a dog-and-pony show created purely to distract/reassure the sheeple with what ever lies work. This is so, because the entire History of European nations is one of rule by absolute lie- where the end ALWAYS justifies the means for the elites who are in charge.
When Tony Blair first rose to power, he immediately set work recreating the entire internal (hidden) power structure of the EU, the real means by which the actual leaders of each major European power input into the policies and actions of the EU. Blair offered the full resources of his GCHQ and NSA facilities, and explained to each European head how full surveillance programs by the British and American teams meant PERFECT feedback on the thoughts of their populace with respect to current state driven propaganda programs in their home nations.
For an ambitious politician, there is nothing more useful than knowing how your sheeple electorate are currently thinking. Propaganda campaigns can be refined, redesigned or out-right abandoned on the back of such intelligence, infinitely boosting the ability to ignore the inherent will and concerns of the electorate. This allows far more abusive policies without the risk of an effective people's revolt.
Co-operation with Blair meant the nation would be given its own Google designed intelligence data centres, where the same highly effective, cheap and scalable hardware and software designs would allow for the collection, storage, indexing, mining and searching of any amount of full surveillance data.
Today, thanks to Snowden, there is a (very) minor PR problem in several EU nations. The heads of these nations have informed Blair that they must pretend to their populace that full surveillance spying occurred without their knowledge, and Blair has promised the full support of the mainstream media in the UK and USA in pushing this lie in news outlets frequently by the more stupid parts of the population. Snowden's truths will always exist somewhere on the inside pages of papers read by people who (wrongly) consider themselves well-informed, but the propaganda on the more commonly read pages of 'lesser' rags will simply outright lie.
Now, rest assured, some vile political allies of Team Blair and Team Obama WILL fall because of this 'scandal', and their immediate replacements may be somewhat less friendly to Blair's police-state agenda. But, these new people will either be co-opted across time, or will themselves fall when the populace votes the old guard back into power- as happens in these nations all the time. The sheeple have a notoriously short memory, and a desperately sad belief that the grass must be greener on the other side of the fence, even if they left that totally barren field on the same principle at the last election.
With any luck this will be our chance to capture this fugitive and bring him to justice. If he's done nothing wrong he has nothing to worry about.
Or prowess in grammar :P