EU, Merkel to raise NSA program with US officials

[CaptainPanic]

Senior European Union officials will question their American counterparts about previously undisclosed U.S. surveillance programs during a trans-Atlantic ministerial meeting in Dublin starting Thursday.

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will also raise the issue with President Barack Obama when he visits Berlin next week.

 

The European Commission said Monday it was concerned about the impact of such programs on the privacy of EU citizens and said overall problems involving data privacy had already been raised by EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding during talks with her U.S. counterparts in April. (Source: AP news)

 

Given the fact that quite recently there are proposals for "the right to be forgotten" in the EU, the EU may not let this go so easily. Also, the EU and Germany have more than once raised privacy issues with large corporations.

 

It is my opinion that the USA (and therefore the NSA) has no rights to snoop around any European data. I know that the data often goes through US-based data centers, and is handled by US corporations, and that if you read the US laws, this is not against the law. But I never voted for those laws, and I do have rights. This has been mainstream news in most (if not all) EU countries, and I notice an old sentiment coming back that I last saw when Bush was the president.

 

I am very pleased to see that the EU is taking this issue up as a whole, and not as 27 individual players. I am curious to see how the EU will play this. And I kinda hope they will have a very big mouth to the Americans, simply telling them to stop or sanctions will follow (which would probably hurt the EU too - I know that).

[CharonY]

While it is understandable that they may not like that US-agencies are using their data, the European intelligence services also do similar things. At the very least foreign calls made in Germany are (officially since 1994) routinely screened and were sometimes freely shared with the police. Though after a court ruling they were only allowed to do so if there was suspicion of criminal intent.

While the scope is limited to calls into foreign countries, i would not be surprised if they also got more.

in addition, many intelligence agencies in Europe still have strong ties to the US agencies (cold war and everything..), so I am kind of inclined to believe that most parties already know about it and that this is more a political move.

[CaptainPanic]

[...] so I am kind of inclined to believe that most parties already know about it and that this is more a political move.

 

Of course. It's politics that got these laws into place. And it will be politics that will (hopefully) eventually get rid of them. They got into place through fear of terrorism (which, let's admit, was nothing new), so it would only complete the circle if the argument to get rid of these laws is nothing new either.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the EU move is for some part economical. Because the intelligence gathered is not just the private citizens. It is also corporate information, which can sometimes be sensitive. If leaked to the right people in other businesses, it could be worth quite a bit of money.