Here's Why The EU Is Crazy Not To Insist On Full Transparency During TAFTA/TTIP
from the information-asymmetry dept
One of the most recent Snowden stories has garnered relatively little attention, perhaps because it appeared (in English) on the Danish site Information.dk:
At the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, the world's nations were supposed to reach an agreement that would protect future generations against catastrophic climate change. But not everyone was playing by the rules. A leaked document now reveals that the US employed the NSA, its signals intelligence agency, to intercept information about other countries' views on the climate negotiations before and during the summit. According to observers, the spying may have contributed to the Americans getting their way in the negotiations
As the report on Information.dk explains, the US was able to use inside knowledge of the negotiating positions of other countries to strengthen its bargaining position. Indeed, it didn't bother bargaining at all, since it learned that there was a "final" proposal being held in reserve to reach an agreement that would give it pretty much what it wanted. It knew that it only had to wait.
It's a great story, and well-worth reading, but here I want to concentrate on its implications for another major agreement, currently being negotiated: TAFTA/TTIP. On the one side is the US, on the other, the 28 nations that go to make up the European Union. Because they have differing views on the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations, it's necessary to pass around many documents conveying information about the current negotiations, and seek to obtain some kind of consensus on future EU proposals and flexibilities.
In the wake of Snowden's revelations, security will doubtless be much better than during the Copenhagen Summit, when supposedly secret messages were sent using unencrypted emails. But it only needs one weak link in the European Union's security chain -- somebody who forgets to encrypt his or her message, or who leaves it on a system that has been compromised -- and the NSA will be able to access that information, and pass it on to the US negotiators, just as it did in Copenhagen.
The key point is that there is a profound information asymmetry in the TAFTA/TTIP talks. Although the spy agencies of the EU countries will doubtless be trying their best to obtain confidential information about US negotiating tactics, it will be much harder than it is for the US to do the same about EU positions. That's because the NSA is far larger, and far more expert than the EU agencies. GCHQ is probably the nearest in terms of capabilities, but is so closely allied with the NSA in other areas that it probably won't be trying too hard so as not to annoy its paymaster.
This more or less guarantees that the US will know everything about the EU's negotiating plans during TAFTA/TTIP, while the EU will remain in the dark about the US intentions. That not only undercuts the European Commission's argument that releasing documents is not possible because they must remain secret during the negotiations -- they won't be -- it also gives the EU a huge incentive to insist on full transparency for the talks. That way, the EU negotiators would be able to see at least some US documents that currently are hidden from them, whereas the US would gain little that it didn't already know through more dubious means.
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Filed Under: eu, nsa, secrecy, surveillance, tafta, trade negotiations, transparency, ttip
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And why aren't any NSA executive being hauled over the coals? Money. That's what's at the core of this and other, similar negotiations, it's all about the green.
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Besides, we only spy on terrorists.
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something that is always disregarded by these and other industries is that without the ordinary people, a whole lot of rich and famous people will be doing the jobs they think are beneath them at the moment! a bit of care is urged here, because it can become very messy, very quickly!
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Re:
What a surprise...
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THE only time
SOMEONE is going to make money..
Is many other countries, insted of installing Broadcast antennas ALL OVER the place, they send up a Sat. and broadcast to EVERYONE for free...
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Also the EU has 28 countries involved. That means they have to pass the info around a lot more people than the US has.
Why dont they stop the negotiations? Because noone wants a political shitstorm, but the US is pushing really hard for it.
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why the secrecy?
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Answer: ACTA.
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Hackers and Terrorists
Discovering that the US Fed is by far the most dangerous "hacker" organization on earth, is only surpassed in shock value by the fact that the US fed is the most dangerous "terrorist" organization on earth.
While it is obvious that the actions of the corporate controlled Federal Government of the USA are not unanimously approved of by the American People, the results of these actions will stain the credibility of all Americans globally as long as the crimes of their government continue.
And what is probably worse in the long run, these actions will give other criminal governments the ability to become even more oppressive, aggressive and intrusive since the US has disqualified itself from holding any moral high ground.
It is in fact, highly unlikely that the US will ever again hold the moral high ground, and Americans in general will likely be held in contempt and distrusted for the actions of the government by the global public far into the future.
If any lesson is to be learned from this, it is simply that government must be 100% transparent to the public, or risk the near certainty of power abuse by its members.
Or perhaps the lesson here is that government itself is obsolete and needs to be replaced with something else which is actually of the people, by the people and for the people.
It is patently obvious that the Federal Government of the USA is none of the above.
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Surface area
That might be true, and it might be a factor, but it's by no means the major one.
The major one is that the EU is large and diverse and will need to consult among its member nations to construct its negotiating positions, which will require sending lots of information across large distances to various nations' capitals.
Meanwhile, the US can formulate its positions and responses in a single smoky back room in some obscure corner of Washington, DC.
This gives the US a very small surface area for EU intelligence agencies to attack, and the EU a very large surface area for the NSA to attack.
Insistence on total transparency by the EU would be one way for the EU to substantially level the playing field.
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