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EU Parliament: Citizens' Rights Still Endangered By Mass Surveillance
New submitter hughankers writes with this slice of a press release from the European Parliament:: Too little has been done to safeguard citizens' fundamental rights following revelations of electronic mass surveillance, say MEPs in a resolution voted on Thursday. They urge the EU Commission to ensure that all data transfers to the US are subject to an "effective level of protection" and ask EU member states to grant protection to Edward Snowden, as a "human rights defender". Parliament also raises concerns about surveillance laws in several EU countries.
This resolution, approved by 342 votes to 274, with 29 abstentions, takes stock of the (lack of) action taken by the European Commission, other EU institutions and member states on the recommendations set out by Parliament in its resolution of 12 March 2014 on the electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens, drawn up in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations.
This resolution, approved by 342 votes to 274, with 29 abstentions, takes stock of the (lack of) action taken by the European Commission, other EU institutions and member states on the recommendations set out by Parliament in its resolution of 12 March 2014 on the electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens, drawn up in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations.
Until it is illegal for national governments to spy on their people, OF COURSE citizens rights are still endangered! Make a law, make spying on Europeans illegal, set severe minimum penalties for violations.
There is no guaranteed right of privacy.
It's too easy to spy and collect/store information without anybody knowing. The only way to deal with it is to make sure what they have can't be used against you. Also, let's do more spying on them.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Belgium was one of the surveillance targets, and EU Commission is therefore likely tainted. Lobbying against the EU Commission, the US would be armed with all the EU talking points, detailed backgrounds on the Commissioners, researchers etc. The data they had researched, the people they had met (co-traveller from the phones), the places they had gone, the companies they interviewed.
That influence help them negotiate and leverage people, but it also helps leverage the *choice* of the person for a particular role. In other words, the Commissioners and their staff are also chosen in a tainted selection process.
They've appointed Juncker now, (Barosso was a US tool). But every meeting he has with people, every paper, ever email will likely be in US hands, even if Juncker is less controlled than Barosso was.
There could be no discussions in the EU on how to push for privacy that the US wouldn't know about in micro detail, and be able to head off with leverage.
Isn't it funny? The UK and EU and more spied on by NSA than Russia and China? And those countries spy agencies and politicians helped spy on their own people to create that situation.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/nsa-spied-on-european-union-offices-a-908590.html
Fucking traitors in the donut, helping US spy on EU, even though EU is part of the legislative hierarchy of the UK, and US is not.
The U.S. is a big target because of high profile leaks exposing the programs, but it is pretty obvious given the level of cyber intelligence Intel shared between major world powers that every developed nation has similar programs.
The feigned outrage is especially hypocritical with the E.U. since the world leader in mass surveillance, the U.K., is a member. They not only have mass cyber surveillance, but their population willingly submits to mass video surveillance as well.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFR), article 7 right to privacy, article 8, right to protection of personal data.
That's just some of the ways the EU has jurisdiction here. It also has 2002/58/EC, 2006/24/EC, 2009/136/EC, etc etc etc.
http://loc.gov/law/help/online_2012-007949_RPT_PART_ONE.pdf
The danger is the people who are supposed to enforce this are turncoats.
Why, for example, should my visit to that URL be logged for surveillance? What business is it of anyones that I researched that URL? I didn't consent to it, I use Duck Duck Go specifically to reject Google's surveillance for example. Yet turncoats in certain governments, like Theresa May, are putting in mass surveillance laws that would permit warrantless searches for that URL. Why?
No word on mass surveillance conducted by Europeans on Europeans? According to leaks, UK was even more egregious than US,
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/18/world/britains-gchq-the-brains-americas-nsa-the-money-behind-spy-alliance/
and the information sharing with US counterparts was done not only by Google and Facebook but also by German BND with NSA.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/nsa-scandal-rekindles-in-germany-with-an-ironic-twist/2015/04/30/030ec9e0-ee7e-11e4-8050-839e9234b303_story.html
I assume these Eurocrats are done pushing for "mandatory data retention," the zombie law that keeps reviving itself in Europe which just passed in Australia? They were fine with the hypocricy of pushing for mandatory retention for government's benefit but right to be forgotten among fellow citizens: it's not ok for secrets to come back to haunt you, except when the secrets were never publicized in the first place and it's the government with its power imbalance thats haunting you and then it's fine. That was their old position. Now that they're worried about surveillance under US secret FISA courts approving front-door warrants to European's data, surely they'll be equally worried about spurious warrants within their own regime, right? Because if they are worried about the NSA's back door, that works slightly better if the data is in Europe. If foreigners moved all their damned poison data out of the US, the NSA would have no excuse to tap US infrastructure any more.
At least the last iron curtain was built by the will of an authoritarian regime. The next one will be built by smarmy political expedience and meshes of special interests.
Now more than ever, with national politicians just waiting for an excuse to ramp up the police state, the European parliament should have citizen's rights on their agenda and prevent any attempts of abusing a humanitarian crisis for fascist power-grabbing.
Huh, ya think? huhu.
I am wondering if this is a change of heart brought on by the recent emergency meeting held when mp found out they themselves were being spied on.
I wonder to what degree the US does mass surveillance of people in Europe. That homeland security mentality may not be restrained by borders these days.
Since when is it still endangered? Aren't we past that?
This seems to be a concerted propaganda campaign suggesting that things are getting better. They are not. They are getting worse and worse.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This is another non binding resolution. The EU parliament is a fake parliament, which cannot really force the commission into doing something (I understand it could revoke it, though, but I am not sure since it never hapened)
The EU court of justice did the hard work, though, when it stroke down the US-EU safe harbor agreement..
With Wilson doctrine gone.
I'm wondering how we secure UK MPs comms and data, and that of their families researches etc. from GCHQ/NSA eavesdropping now?
We had the story about securing journalists laptops, but more critically, what to do about MPs?
It was hypothesized that GCHQ had that role, i.e. protecting UK government business and people from outside surveillance by securing our comms. It seems the role is reversed, and loyalties reversed too.
Which explains this:
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/12/03/parliament_heads_for_ms/
UK Parliament migrating to Office 364 "Cloud", effectively moving the private documents of government to PRISM/NSA controlled servers. The move came *after* Snowden revelations.
So can you imagine Parliamentary debates on any subject involving the US, where the US wouldn't take a detailed look at the UK discussions behind closed doors? All those speeches written and stored "in the cloud", trivial to read.
You'd expect an outcry from both the Parliaments IT guys and GCHQ, but no.... strangely silent... like the fooking traitors they are.