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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.
nope false alert, not gonna happen.
Or, if they're going to have him testify, they have diplomats collect him and bring him in on a plain covered by immunity, move him around in diplomatic cars, and house him in diplomatic residences.
Do you *really* think that it is impossible to basically "fuck you" and bring him there safely if there's the political will?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
RTFA: The former US National Security Agency worker would testify by interactive video link from Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum.
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.
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".
It's worse than that. The EU is where the US gets its guns from, because the US is too incompetent to make its own guns any more. Most police departments use Glocks, which come from Austria, and the US military is going to use an H-K rifle from Germany for their next-generation assault rifle. The US military already uses the Beretta M-9 for its standard sidearm: Beretta is an Italian company. All the best guns come from the EU (or Switzerland, which is surrounded by the EU): FAL in Belgium with their P90 submachine gun and F2000 rifle (standard rifle used by many countries' armies including Pakistan), H-K in Germany with their MP5 submachine gun used by lots of militaries and police departments including probably every US SWAT team, Glock in Austria, SIG in Switzerland, HS in Croatia, Steyr in Britain, I'm sure there's lots more. The US gunmakers mostly only make historical replicas (e.g. Colt 45s from the 1800s) and copies of aging and obsolete guns like the 1911 and the AR-15. When they want something new and innovative, they import it from Europe and rebadge it (like the Springfield XD series, made by HS in Croatia).
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.
the plane that they grounded that time was headed to somewhere in Latin America (Cuba or Ecuador I think).
That would be Bolivia. Which, since it was Bolivian President Evo Morales's plane, is about as serious a diplomatic violation as you can get (imagine Russia or China grounding Air Force One and searching it).
I am officially gone from