Brazilian Politicians Want To Offer Snowden Asylum After Learning Of US Spying On Brazilians

from the making-friends-around-the-globe dept

You may have heard that one of the latest revelations from Ed Snowden's whistleblowing efforts concerned the NSA's spying on Brazilians with a rather extensive program.

As the headline suggests, the crux of the main article details how the NSA has, for years, systematically tapped into the Brazilian telecommunication network and indiscriminately intercepted, collected and stored the email and telephone records of millions of Brazilians.

Of course, as each new country learns more and more about US spying on their citizens, the outrage against the US seems to grow. The Brazilian government has now kicked off an investigation, but perhaps more interesting is the fact that some Brazilian Senators are using this story to suggest that the country offer asylum to Snowden. Frankly, the spying on people outside the US by the NSA is hardly a surprise at all, since it's long been known that the NSA doesn't need any warrants concerning the spying on foreigners. However, from a diplomatic standpoint, this is (once again) making things tricky for the US government. But not just because more and more countries are "demanding answers," but also because this seems to be leading more countries to considering more strongly whether or not to grant Snowden asylum. Perhaps if the US didn't treat so-called "allies" as enemies, it wouldn't be having this problem in the first place.

Filed Under: asylum, brazil, diplomacy, ed snowden, nsa, nsa surveillance

Germans Want To Give Snowden A Medal, French Want To Give Him Asylum -- And To Call Off TAFTA/TTIP

from the never-a-dull-moment dept

Although nobody seems to know what Edward Snowden is up to at the moment, there have been plenty of reactions from others to the earlier revelations about US spying in Europe. Alongside the outrage, there is also a certain gratitude towards Snowden in some quarters for providing information about what has been going on. For example, one of the local wings of the German Pirate Party has suggested that he should be awarded a Federal Order of Merit (original in German.) In France, a surprisingly broad spectrum of politicians are calling for him to be offered political asylum according to this report from France 24 :

"France must give this whistle blower and defender of freedom political asylum without delay," the Green Party, in coalition with the ruling Socialists, said in a statement. "It would serve to remind the US, as it enters into free trade talks with the EU, that France wholeheartedly rejects the US stance on data protection."

And in a rare show of cross-party unity, Marine Le Pen of the far right National Front and at the very opposite end of the political spectrum from Mélanchon's Left Party also said France had a duty to take Snowden under its wing.

If that offer were to become official, it might be welcome. Snowden has applied to 21 countries for political asylum, although he has since withdrawn his application to Russia because Vladimir Putin imposed a striking condition for offering it:

If he wants to stay here, there is one condition -- he must stop his work aimed at bringing harm to our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my mouth.

As this table from The Guardian shows, so far Snowden doesn't seem to be having much luck in finding a country willing to take him, although now that Ecuador has dropped him, Venezuela remains a possibility:

On a visit to Moscow, [Venezuelan] president Nicolás Maduro said he would consider an asylum request and said the whistleblower "deserves the world's protection".

"We think this young person has done something very important for humanity, has done a favour to humanity, has spoken great truths to deconstruct a world … that is controlled by an imperialist American elite," he said.

Although these questions of asylum are probably uppermost in Snowden's mind, in political terms the most important development in the last few days has been several of Europe's senior politicians warning that the latest information about the scale of US spying on them could affect the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations, due to begin next week. That's particularly the case in France, as the BBC reported:

French President Francois Hollande has said allegations that the US bugged European embassies could threaten a huge planned EU-US trade deal.

He said there could be no negotiations without guarantees that spying would stop "immediately".

The New York Times noted that many in the European Parliament felt the same way:

The European Parliament, which will vote on any free trade agreement, will debate the latest spying revelations in Brussels on Wednesday, with the Parliament's president, Martin Schulz of Germany, saying that he was "deeply worried and shocked." If the latest reports, which include American spying on the European Union itself, are true, he said, "it would be an extremely serious matter that will have a severe impact on E.U.-U.S. Relations."

European lawmakers across the political spectrum warned of a loss of confidence in the Obama administration that would make a free trade deal difficult. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the Green Party floor leader, spoke for many when he said that the European Union "must immediately suspend negotiations with the U.S. over a free trade agreement."

Undoubtedly, there's a lot of posturing going on here. The most senior European politicians surely knew the NSA was active throughout Europe, and probably even benefitted from information it gathered. But the scale of the operations, and the fact that there seems to have been literally no limit to what could be gathered or from whom, does seem to have taken many by surprise.

That could be enough to encourage the European Parliament to make the Data Protection Regulation, currently being drawn up, impose far more stringent terms for companies that want to transfer personal data out of the EU -- and that would be a big problem for Internet companies like Google and Facebook. Since data transfers are also likely to be part of the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations, any such moves would complicate discussions there even more.

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Filed Under: asylum, ed snowden, edward snowden, europe, france, germany, russia, tafta, ttip

Ecuador Tells US To Take Its Trade Agreement And Shove It, After Threats Relayed Over Snowden

from the wow dept

One of the points that many people have made concerning most countries in the world is that they're loathe to challenge the US on many things, even when they're in the right, because they're so reliant on the US for trade. The US regularly lords this fact over countries in seeking to get its way. In fact, US officials had been very strongly suggesting to Ecuador that if it decides to take in Ed Snowden and grant him asylum, that there could be consequences for trade under the Andean Trade Preference Act that both countries are signed to, but which needs to be renewed next month. Specifically, US politicians suggested that they might not allow the renewal if Ecuador granted asylum.

In response, Ecuador has taken a stand: saying that it's breaking the trade agreement upfront as it doesn't appreciate the attempt by the US to blackmail it in this matter.

President Rafael Correa's government said on Thursday it was renouncing the Andean Trade Preference Act to thwart US "blackmail" of Ecuador in the former NSA contractor's asylum request.

Officials, speaking at an early morning press conference, also offered a $23m donation for human rights training in the US, a brash riposte to recent US criticism of Ecuador's own human rights record.

Furthermore, they made it quite clear that this is entirely about the US' actions in trying to pressure them about Snowden:

"Ecuador does not accept pressure or threats from anyone, nor does it trade with principles or submit them to mercantile interests, however important those may be," said Fernando Alvarado, the communications secretary.

"Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits."

As the article notes, some of this is surely political. It is a bit of a populist move by the government, and many suspected that the trade agreement was unlikely to be renewed anyway by the US, so in some ways this is an attempt to get out in front of that story and pull something of a "you can't fire me, I quit!" move. Still, it highlights, once again, the way the US bullies smaller countries, and how that can backfire.

Filed Under: andean trade preference act, asylum, atpa, blackmail, ecuador, ed snowden, edward snowden, rafael correa, threats, trade agreements

Classic Function Creep As EU Police May Gain Access To Asylum Seekers Fingerprint Database

from the exceptionally-common-situations dept

As Techdirt readers well know, one of the problems with measures brought in for "exceptional situations" -- be it fighting terrorism or tackling child pornography -- is that once in place, they have a habit of being applied more generally. A case in point is the blocking of Newzbin2 by BT in the UK. That was possible because BT had already installed its "Cleanfeed" system to block child pornography: once in place, this "specialized" censorship system could easily be deployed to block quite different sites.

Another, more recent, case from the EU involves Eurodac, a database with fingerprint information provided by asylum seekers there. Here's the original justification for storing them:

The database was originally established in 2000 so EU nations could check whether an asylum seeker had previously applied for asylum in another European country or was receiving social benefits from another EU country. According to EU law, asylum seekers can apply for asylum only in the EU nation where they first entered the bloc.

But the politicians have noticed that this biometric data could be handy in quite different circumstances:

such a rich source of existing data has recently sparked the interest of other parties. If the EU Commission's requests are followed, Eurodac fingerprint data will be accessible to police officers during investigations. The commission's proposal envisions national law enforcement agencies and Europe's supranational criminal police commission, Interpol, being able to access the database.

Of course, allowing the police to check people's fingerprints in this way would have serious implications for privacy. Indeed, Peter Hustinx, head of the European Data Protection Supervisor, has already weighed in on the subject:

"Just because data is being collected doesn't mean that it should be used for another purpose, especially since that can have a hugely negative effect on the lives of individuals," said Peter Hustinx, head of the European Data Protection Supervisor.

And that really is the nub of the issue: people who agree to provide highly-personal data for one purpose, may then find it being used for another, without being asked. And if the European Commission gets its way, even more data will be shared:

"The Commission would generally like to widen its collection of data and make available any information regarding criminal prosecutions," [Green Party MEP] Keller said. "One example is the so-called 'Smart Borders' package, which actually wasn't proposed this round but has been in the pipeline for a long time. The idea there is that in the future anyone from non-EU countries that would like to travel into the EU will be recorded electronically, which also includes fingerprints."

As more and more biometric data is collected around the world, this kind of function creep is likely to become increasingly common.

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Filed Under: asylum, database, eu, fingerprints, function creep, law enforcement, privacy

Appeals Court Tells Homeland Security That Wikipedia Alone Isn't Sufficient Evidence For Refusing Asylum To A Refugee

from the DHS-didn't-realize-this? dept

While I tend to think that Wikipedia is a good thing overall, that's because I know it's not a source that should be relied on by itself for important decisions -- such as whether or not to grant political asylum to an individual. It can be useful as a starting point, if that information can be corroborated elsewhere. Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security felt otherwise in using Wikipedia to deny a request for asylum for a woman. An Appeals Court has now overturned that decision, noting the problems with using Wikipedia as a sole source of info, but the whole scenario should make you wonder. Did DHS really not have the ability to check the legitimacy of the woman's documents without resorting to Wikipedia? What sort of resources are provided to immigration officials that they're making judgments based on a Wikipedia page?

Filed Under: asylum, immigration, sources, wikipedia