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EU May Forbid the Transfer of Personal Data To the US
An anonymous reader writes: As the Snowden revelations have shown, personal data stored in the United States of America is not protected from the US government, be it through warrantless eavesdropping or national security letters. In light of this, the general attorney for the Court of Justice of the European Union has just issued an opinion requiring the US to be removed from the list of "safe harbors", where the transfer of personal data of European citizens is permitted. If the court follows his opinion, the change will have deep impact in the operations of large transnational Internet companies, between a US government that wants to keep on spying, and European authorities that will punish them if they let it happen.
Yep that is what the TPPA, TISA etc are all about. Shoring up US influence.
The US does not know what to do when its no longer in charge, they are like the pushing little kid who has to make up all the rules of every game to ensure they win every time, and if they can't they don't want to play with everyone else.
Nope, it's illegal. The USA don't have sufficient data protection laws, therefore the transfer of personal data from the EU to the USA is prohibited by default (article 57 of 95/46/EC), with some exceptions (article 58 of 95/46/EC), unless particular measures are taken (article 59 of 95/46/EC).
There's nothing like $HOME
Actually, what you're saying is false. The case stems from a complaint brought by an Austrian citizen against Facebook. That constitutes bringing a claim against a US organization. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner ruled against the claim, so it was appealed to the European Court of Justice.
That might be the origin, but that's not the question the Attorney General issued an opinion about. The Irish High Court refused to hear a claim about Facebook's transfer of data and referred to the Safe Harbour treaty, and thus there was the question to the European High Court if the Irish High Court has to consider if the actual conditions of the Safe Harbour provisions were met. And now the Attorney General opinionated that the U.S. does not met the the regulations for the Safe Harbour treaty because European citizens have no legal recourse against the wholesale spying performed by the NSA and other organisations in the U.S.. The NSA spying was called unspecific and without clear goal and thus in violation of the privacy rights of European citizens. This is the first time that an European institution actually took the Snowden allegations as fact (until now most courts opinionated that the allegations have not been proven yet), and thus issued a statement that the U.S. is not adhering to the provisions and thus the European Commission can't declare the U.S. a safe harbour, thus all treaties with the U.S. about data protections are void.