CIA's Brennan: I Think We've Had Enough Transparency For The Time Being

from the oh-really? dept

The CIA's Director John Brennan spoke out about this week's release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA Torture Report -- and to say he wasn't pleased about the report would be an understatement. Rather amazingly, in real-time as Brennan spoke, Senator Dianne Feinstein's staffers did a real time rebuttal/fact-check to his speech via Twitter, with each statement punctuated with the hashtag #ReadTheReport. Brennan's tap dancing concerning the report included a number of jaw dropping statements, but I wanted to focus on two specific ones. First, Brennan claimed that he's had enough transparency and he thinks this goes too far:

When asked if he supported the release of the Senate report, Brennan said he would keep his views to himself. But could he share them with the public, “in the interest of transparency?” a Wall Street Journal reporter asked. “I think there is more than enough transparency that has happened over the last couple days,” said the man who was chosen for the job by President Obama. “I think it’s over the top.”

Over the top? It's "over the top" to have the Senate Intelligence Committee -- the body designed to do oversight over the intelligence community to prevent abuse of power -- to spend years researching these issues, and then agree to only release a heavily redacted executive summary that basically details widespread and systematic practices that clearly amount to torture without naming any names or placing any direct blame? And that's "over the top"?

Second, is that after all of this, Brennan won't admit that the CIA won't go back into the torture game. Rather, he notes that if ordered to do the same thing again, he'd go right along with it:

"We are not contemplating at all getting back into the interrogation program," Brennan said.

As for the future, he said, “I defer to future policymakers.”

We've been told for a while -- including by the President himself -- that one of the reasons why they wanted this report out was to make sure that such things never happened again. It does not appear to be working.

Filed Under: cia, cia torture report, john brennan, torture, torture report, transparency

Sen. Rockefeller Sitting On FOIA Improvement Act, Despite Two Unanimous Votes In Favor Of Passage

from the bipartisan-support-meets-gov't-agency-resistance dept

A FOIA reform bill that sailed through both the House (410-0) and the Senate Judiciary Committee (again with a unanimous vote) is currently stalled, having gone nowhere for the past two weeks thanks to Sen. Jay Rockefeller.

The Freedom of Information Act Improvements Act (hereinafter cited as "FOIAIA") helps put the "freedom" back in the FOIA -- something that has a chance to trim down the number of requests that result in fully-redacted pages or federal lawsuits. Rockefeller has expressed some concerns about the openness of the open records law improvements.

"I have a long record of support for open government and the FOIA process. I am concerned that provisions in this bill will have the unintended consequence of harming our ability to enforce the many important federal laws that protect American consumers from financial fraud and other abuses," Rockefeller said in a statement Friday. "According to experts across the federal government, these provisions would make it harder for federal agency attorneys to prepare their cases, and they would potentially give defendants new ways to obstruct and delay investigations into their conduct. I hope there is a way to address these concerns and pass the bill."

The two agencies offering up the most resistance to the bill appear to be the FTC and the SEC, both of which apparently feel the law creates a playground for targets of its investigations.

[S]ources said the agencies' concerns are that the legislation would allow companies to pierce the attorney-client and attorney work-product privileges, potentially giving targets of enforcement actions a roadmap detailing what kind or level of misconduct will trigger action and what kind is likely to be ignored.

There also appears to be a law enforcement contingent pushing for death of this bill as well.

"The bill would statutorily require government law enforcement agencies to withhold documents from a FOIA request only if they first establish that 'the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by' the exemption invoked," said a Rockefeller aide who asked not to be named. "Consequently, the bill could expose law enforcement agencies to needless litigation and drain their already limited resources in defending FOIA decisions that have long been invoked for legitimate law enforcement purposes."

Transparency advocates point out that privileged attorney-client communications will remain privileged even with the passage of the bill and that government agencies will still retain the power to redact information and withhold documents -- they'll just need to start providing better explanations for these actions. As for the concerns about the new "forseeable harm" requirement? That requirement isn't even new.

"Agencies have been required to use this standard since 2009 when Attorney General Holder issued a memo requiring it. Agencies also used this same standard during President Clinton's term. It was only during President George W. Bush's term of secrecy that this standard was rolled back," [Patrice McDermott of OpenTheGovernment.org] wrote.

So, it appears Rockefeller is hoping the whole thing just goes away. The reform bill had already been watered down post-House passage and additional concerns raised by Tom Coburn had been addressed, resulting in him releasing his hold on the legislation late last week. Now, it's up to Rockefeller to do the same. If he doesn't do it by the end of the day on Monday, the bill dies.

As it stands now, Rockefeller is standing alone among his fellow senators and representatives. Two unanimous votes -- one in the House and one in the Senate -- are being negated by a single Senator. Supporters of FOIA reform are urging people to contact his office and make it clear that Rockefeller alone shouldn't get to decide whether this bill lives or dies, especially considering its path to this point.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller
Phone: 202-224-6472
Fax: 202-224-7665
Email: Sen.Rockefeller@opencongress.org
Twitter: @senrockefeller

Filed Under: foia, ftc, hold, investigations, jay rockefeller, sec, transparency

Lawsuit Filed Against European Commission In EU's Highest Court For Refusing To Allow Official TAFTA/TTIP Petition

from the almost-worthless dept

A couple of months ago, we reported on an extraordinary refusal by the European Commission to allow an official EU-wide petition, called a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI), to proceed. It was to have been on the topic of TAFTA/TTIP, and the Commission claimed it couldn't go ahead for the following reasons:

The negotiating mandate for TTIP is an internal preparatory act, and not a legal act affecting EU citizens. The act affects institutions only; not EU law directly. An ECI can only be directed at a concluded act, and not already at its preparatory stage.

An ECI proposing not to enforce a legal act is not possible. An ECI may be formulated only positively, i.e. work towards the enactment of a legal act.

That summary comes from a background document from 300 European civil society groups that have just filed a lawsuit against the European Commission in the EU's highest court, seeking to overturn this refusal. The document goes on to explain why the European Commission's reasoning is flawed (pdf):

Through its legal interpretation, the Commission is attempting to completely exclude its citizens from the development of international contracts: they should have no influence on their preparation. However, if international contracts are already in force, it is then almost impossible to challenge them -- it is practically impossible to terminate them.

The Commission wants to push through that an ECI can be used by citizens only to applaud decisions and schemes of EU bodies. Criticism or rejection should not be permitted, at least through official channels.

And what is more: From the justification of the rejection, it follows that an ECI on international contracts should not be possible, even if it were formulated positively ( "...the preparatory Council decisions authorising the opening of international negotiations or repealing such authorisation do not fall within the scope of the Regulation"). The citizens want to initiate a Europe-wide agreement on the determination of occupational safety standards? Impossible -- says the Commission.

If citizens are to be active through an ECI only if the EU institutions have already made all the important advance decisions, then the instrument of the European Citizens' Initiative is almost worthless.

Challenging the refusal therefore has another, more general, aim:

"We are not only appealing for the sake of the Stop TTIP ECI, but also for future European Citizens’ Initiatives. When it comes to the negotiation of international treaties, the European Commission wants to exclude citizens. While they are being negotiated, people are told not to interfere and when final contracts are put on the table, it’s too late. The Commission’s legal position effectively prevents any future ECIs on international agreements."

This really goes to the heart of the problem not just with TAFTA/TTIP, but also with TPP and the new TISA. The public is told that it cannot comment while the negotiations are being conducted, but that it should wait to see the final document. At that point, it is then told that there is no point in commenting, since nothing can be changed, and so the agreement must simply be accepted.

Fortunately, the groups behind the original ECI petition that was turned down have gone ahead and organized a petition quite separate from the ECI system. At the time of writing, it has attracted nearly 900,000 signatories from within the EU (the petition is limited to EU citizens, as the ECI would have been.) That makes it anti-democratic in the extreme for the European Commission to stymie an ECI on TAFTA/TTIP. The hope is that the legal action at the European Union's Court of Justice will compel the Commission to accept that fact and act on it.

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Filed Under: eu, european commission, petitions, public, tafta, transparency, ttip

District Court Orders Release Of Another DOJ Drone-Killing Memo, Cites [REDACTED] In Support

from the reading-between-the-deletions dept

New York's Southern District Court -- which has been hosting (along with the Second Circuit Appeals Court) the ACLU and New York Times' long-running, concurrent FOIA lawsuits against the government over its drone killing memos -- has reached a partial decision on some of the embattled documents.

The court's decision was actually delivered on Sept. 30th, but its conclusion and order have spent the last month under seal while the government applied its redactions. An accompanying memo from the presiding judge [pdf link] notes that the court isn't buying all the government's redaction arguments.

I disagree with the Government's redaction of the bulk of the first full paragraph and the second and third paragraphs on page 9, which as drafted by this court contain not a whit of classified material (the Government does not suggest otherwise), and which I do not believe would tend to reveal any classified information. In order to preserve that issue for appellate review, I will release on the public docket the opinion with all the Government's proposed redactions today, along with this cover note indicating my conclusion about this material. Should the Second Circuit agree with the Government that the material was properly redacted, nothing will be lost; should it agree with my view that nothing the Government has redacted on page 9 should be redacted, it will so indicate.

Indeed, page 9 of the order [pdf link] leaves almost everything to the imagination, retaining only a single sentence that really makes you wish the court hadn't deferred to the government's judgement.

The issue raised by the Government's objection to disclosure is potentially fascinating and incredibly complicated.

The rest of the document is the government's proprietary blend of abysmal scanning and heavy redactions. After some discussion about documents the government has already released and information revealed by government officials' own statements, the court drills deeper into the DOJ's redaction justifications. Of course, we can't actually read the government's reasoning or the court's reactions because the government has final cut approval. The DOJ's broad redactions remove a majority of the last 14 pages, leaving behind tantalizing sentences like:

The Government's blithe assertion to the contrary, these waiver issues are not so easily resolved

and:

if that be true, I see no reason why I am even going through this exercise.

The court orders the government to release the contested documents (legal opinions from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel) discussed in the order (the remaining documents related to the FOIA requests will likely be discussed next year), noting there is "no just reason for delay" considering both the public's interest in these memos, as well as the fact that it has been more than three years since the documents were requested.

So, another long-running FOIA lawsuit is showing a little return on investment. Unfortunately, the government's lengthy redactions prevent the public from seeing what arguments it's using in defense of its FOIA stiffarm, as well as keeping it from drawing any legal insight from the court's response.

Filed Under: classified, drones, extrajudicial killing, foia, killing, redacted, secrecy, transparency

A Dystopian Future Of Ads That Won't Stop Until You Say 'McDonald's' Could Be Avoided With More Transparency

from the and-control dept

I've discussed in the past how many people mistake privacy as some sort of absolute "thing" rather than a spectrum of trade-offs. Leaving your home to go to the store involves giving up a small amount of privacy, but it's a trade-off most people feel is worth it (not so much for some uber-celebrities, and then they choose other options). Sharing information with a website is often seen as a reasonable trade-off for the services/information that website provides. The real problem is often just that the true trade-offs aren't clear. What you're giving up and what you're getting back aren't always done transparently, and that's where people feel their privacy is being violated. When they make the decision consciously and the trade-off seems worth it, almost no one feels that their privacy is violated. Yet, when they don't fully understand, or when the deal they made is unilaterally changed, that's when the privacy is violated, because the deal someone thought they were striking is not what actually happened.

And, unfortunately, it often seems like people are increasingly being pressured into deals they don't fully understand and don't have full control over. Michael Price, over at the Brennan Center for Justice, took the time to actually read through the "privacy policy" on his new "smart" TV and it's terrified him. Just the fact that a TV even has a privacy policy seems oddly terrifying, but it makes sense, given that at least some information goes outbound as part of the "smarts." But how much? Potentially a lot more than people would expect:

The amount of data this thing collects is staggering. It logs where, when, how, and for how long you use the TV. It sets tracking cookies and beacons designed to detect “when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message.” It records “the apps you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content.” It ignores “do-not-track” requests as a considered matter of policy.

To some extent, that's not really all that different than a regular computer. But, then it begins to get creepier:

It also has a built-in camera — with facial recognition. The purpose is to provide “gesture control” for the TV and enable you to log in to a personalized account using your face. On the upside, the images are saved on the TV instead of uploaded to a corporate server. On the downside, the Internet connection makes the whole TV vulnerable to hackers who have demonstrated the ability to take complete control of the machine.

More troubling is the microphone. The TV boasts a “voice recognition” feature that allows viewers to control the screen with voice commands. But the service comes with a rather ominous warning: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.” Got that? Don’t say personal or sensitive stuff in front of the TV.

You may not be watching, but the telescreen is listening.

Now, yes, some of that certainly can be useful in creating interesting features and services. And, frankly, almost all of the same things can be said about the smartphone in your pocket with Siri or Google Now listening in to anything you say at any moment's notice. But at the very least, with those smartphone systems people tend to see and understand the immediate benefits: they use those tools to get information and they're fairly easy to turn off without creating other problems. With the TV, it seems to be more of the promise of potentially providing some future service -- but it's still willing and ready to listen in the meantime.

This is certainly not to argue that the technology is bad, but that these sorts of things shouldn't be hidden in a 46-page privacy policy that no one is going to read. People should be fully aware of what the deal is, and they should have control over how it's used, with some granular controls: maybe let people set the times in which the TV's "ears" are on -- so that maybe it only works during prime time when you're likely to use the TV. Or let people have access to the logs and data that it's snarfing up so they can view for themselves how it's being used. Make sure that the people using it have both transparency and control, and suddenly this becomes somewhat less scary (well, until the NSA goes to the FISA court to use Section 215 to get all the "metadata" from all your smart TVs.)

And, of course, just as I was finishing up with that article, I came across a report of a patent from Sony from a few years ago. It actually got some attention back in 2012 for describing a system in which your TV may ask you to say the advertiser's name to end a commercial. This figure in the patent is the one that quite reasonably got plenty of attention. Perhaps it's no surprise that some companies are considering something like this. In fact, some of the underlying ideas aren't totally crazy. We've long argued that good advertising is about making it good content, and making ads that are interactive and fun is one way to do that. Of course, I don't quite see how the above scenario is very much fun. To me, it sounds horrifying, but others may disagree.

Either way, it's become quite clear that while the world is becoming more connected -- between our computers, our phones, our TVs and much more, people are increasingly going to run into challenges around privacy. And, while some are going to jump to the conclusion that any information gathering and sharing is automatically bad and dangerous (or just crazy), it's going to be important to recognize the trade-offs inherent in these new devices and services. If companies don't want the public to totally freak out, they'd do well to make these processes much more transparent, clear and controllable by the users themselves. Unfortunately, we're not quite there yet. The focus is still on hiding these things out of a fear that no one would use them if they knew what they were giving up. That seems like a recipe doomed to create privacy panics, rather than one that actually enables innovation to advance and which lets the public be comfortable with the choices they're making.

Filed Under: advertising, future, privacy, smart tvs, transparency

New Zealand's Trade Minister Admits They Keep TPP Documents Secret To Avoid 'Public Debate'

from the who's-ill-informed? dept

A couple years ago, then US Trade Representative Ron Kirk explained why the negotiating text of trade agreements like the TPP needed to be kept secret: because if the public debated it, the agreement probably wouldn't be approved. He used, as an example, a failed trade agreement where the text had been public. Beyond the "small sample size" problem of this explanation, the much more troubling aspect is the obvious question of recognizing that if public debate would kill the agreement, perhaps it's the agreement that's the problem and not the public.

Apparently, New Zealand's current Trade Minister, Tim Groser, feels similar to Kirk on this issue. During a question and answer period, he was asked why he won't share the draft texts with, say, medical professionals for input, given that the current leaks suggest it would be a disaster for public health. Groser's answer is quite telling, in that he admits that he fears the public debate, because it would be "misinformed."

Hon Phil Goff : When the Minister has the right under Trans-Pacific Partnership rules to provide negotiating texts in confidence to relevant groups outside the Government, why has he not taken advantage of that right to ensure that core groups like medical professionals are properly informed about the issues under negotiation?

Hon TIM GROSER : We are trying to make this negotiation a success, and the member is well aware that there is some quite heavy politics here and that full disclosure to certain parties is likely to lead this to go immediately into the public debate on an ill-informed basis before the deal has been done. We are very conscious of the interests of New Zealanders in protecting themselves from such legislation, and we will continue to take a very responsible approach in this negotiation.

Goff immediately tries to point out that Groser does not, in fact, answer his question, but is cut off by the Speaker of the Parliament who claims that the question has been "addressed."

Groser's response is revealing. First, he doesn't actually answer the question. Goff doesn't ask him about revealing it to the public, but merely "medical professionals." Groser is the one who leaps to the conclusion that sharing the text with medical professionals will result in public debate. Why would that be the case unless the issues in the document are so severe and so concerning to those medical professionals that they would feel the need to leak the document to the public?

Second, going back to the point concerning Ron Kirk's comment: if you're going to lose the public debate, then perhaps it's the agreement that's the problem, rather than the public debate. If these agreements are so good and important, then why can't Groser and others present that information to the public so that they're not "ill-informed." Yes, these are draft texts and not the final ones, but there are other forums in which such draft text negotiations are done publicly, and it hasn't been a problem. It's only in these international trade agreements where the final product is only revealed to the public after it's too late to make any changes or get any input from the public who is most impacted.

Filed Under: new zealand, public, public good, ron kirk, secrecy, tim groser, tpp, trade, transparency, ustr

Obama Administration Has Put Media Leakers In Jail For Nearly 50 Times As Long As All Other Administrations In History

from the ouch dept

We've been among those who have pointed out that the "most transparent administration in history," the Obama administration, has prosecuted media leakers more than all other Presidents in history combined (eight prosecutions in this administration, compared to three total in all previous administrations). Gabe Rottman, over at the ACLU, decided to dig into another stat: how much time has the Obama administration been able to lock up media leakers in jail compared to all other administrations. The answer? The Obama administration has put folks who leaked info to the media in jail for 526 months as compared to 24 months for all other Presidents combined. Admittedly, 420 of those months went to Chelsea Manning, but even if you take that out, we're still talking 106 months for other leakers in cases from this one administration vs. 24 months for all other administrations.

It once again has to make you wonder why the Obama Administration is so focused on punishing anyone who leaks information to the media (even as it likes to "unofficially" leak information all the time). In the end, I keep going back to the speculation I heard from Daniel Ellsberg nearly four years ago (which is also where I first heard the stat about the number of Obama prosecutions against leakers -- at that time, it was just five prosecutions, rather than eight).

Ellsberg's theory was that while President Bush abused the power of the Presidency in the surveillance realm, he was actually proud of it. And while people were upset about secrets leaking, they didn't find it embarrassing. President Obama, on the other hand, came into office claiming to be different -- arguing against those kinds of abuses and promising changes and protections for civil rights. Instead, it appears that the process started under President Bush continued and expanded under President Obama and -- Ellsberg speculated years ago -- the President is somewhat embarrassed by this, leading him and his administration to react negatively to the leaks. Not because of any legitimate security concern, but to try to silence those who seek to reveal that the administration and the President have not come close to living up to their ideals but rather went the other way entirely.

Putting those who leaked info to the media in jail for 526 months -- nearly 44 years -- says a lot about the way the administration truly views whistleblowing, and it's not a saying anything good.

Filed Under: chelsea manning, espionage act, free speech, leak prosecutions, leaks, obama administration, reporting, transparency, whistleblowing

Street Demonstrations In 21 European Countries Held To Protest Against TAFTA/TTIP; Another ACTA Revolt Brewing?

from the unprecedented-alliance dept

Last month, the European Commission refused to accept a request to allow an official EU-wide petition called a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) to take place. This was a curiously maladroit move by the Commission: it would have been easy to allow the petition against TAFTA/TTIP and CETA to proceed, thank the organizers once it was completed, file it away somewhere and then ignore it. Instead, by refusing to allow it to take place, the European Commission has highlighted in a dramatic manner the deeply undemocratic way in which so-called trade agreements are conducted.

Moreover, those making the request have simply gone ahead anyway, launching what they call the "Self-organised European Citizens' initiative Against TTIP and CETA". Even though this was only launched last week, it has already collected over 600,000 signatures from European citizens at the time of writing, and there is every indication that it will go well past the nominal one million signatures that the ECI would have required. The European Commission's refusal to allow the official petition was doubly stupid, since it came shortly before a Europe-wide day of action against TAFTA/TTIP that took place last Saturday, and doubtless encouraged people to take to the streets in order to make their views felt:

On October 11, 2014, tens of thousands of people and hundreds of organisations in 21 countries are organising actions to reclaim democracy, and stop the negotiations on three far-reaching trade agreements: the EU-US deal (TTIP), the EU-Canada deal (CETA) and the trade in services deal (TiSA).

This decentralised European Day of Action -- consisting of over 300 actions, marches, meetings and flash mobs -- is being organised by an unprecedented alliance of civil society groups and individuals, social movements, trade unions, rights defenders, farmers and grassroots activist groups.

Reporting on the event, Euractiv.com wrote:

Some 400 activist groups marched all over Europe on Saturday (11 October) in protest against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), as the EU-US trade deal crystallises opposition to a wide variety of issues -- from shale gas to corporate finance.

That last point is important. Euractiv.com goes on to explain:

The opposition to TTIP has many faces however, and seems to embody a wide variety of concerns. In France, many small demonstrations focused on opposition to shale gas, especially in the South of France, while in Berlin protesters were worried that TTIP would weaken the powers of the German regions, or Länders.

Potentially, that could make the European opposition to TAFTA/TTIP even broader-based than it was to ACTA, where people were largely concerned about a single issue -- digital rights. And just as the ACTA demonstrations started off small scale, but grew to hundreds of thousands of people before ACTA was rejected by the European Parliament, so the anti-TTIP movement in Europe could easily swell larger still. Especially if the European Commission continues to conduct the negotiations in secret and without any input from its citizens.

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Filed Under: acta, ceta, demonstrations, eu, europe, european commission, public participation, tafta, transparency, ttip

EU Ombudsman Slaps Down European Commission For Lack Of Transparency -- Again

from the no-messing-around dept

Back in February, we wrote about the European Union office of Ombudsman, whose job is to hold the EU administration to account, telling the European Parliament to try harder in its efforts to bring some transparency to the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations. A few months later, the Ombudsman took on the Council of the European Union and the European Commission, urging them to publish more TTIP documents:

The European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, has called on the Council of the European Union to publish the EU negotiating directives for the on-going Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations with the US. She has also proposed to the European Commission a range of practical measures to enable timely public access to TTIP documents, and to details of meetings with stakeholders. She has opened investigations involving both institutions.

Emily O'Reilly explained: "The EU institutions have made a considerable effort to promote transparency and public participation concerning TTIP. I agree that not all negotiating documents can be published at this stage, there needs to be room to negotiate. However, concerns have been raised about key documents not being disclosed, about delays, and about the alleged granting of privileged access to TTIP documents to certain stakeholders. Given the significant public interest and the potential impact of TTIP on the lives of citizens, I am urging both these EU institutions to step up their proactive transparency policy."

Now she's at it again, calling out the European Commission for refusing to share some requested documents relating to GCHQ spying. Here's the background, as explained by the Ombudsman's draft recommendations for the case:

On 25 June 2013, the complainant, a German journalist, asked the Commission for access to documents in its possession in connection with the surveillance of the internet by UK state agencies (mainly the intelligence service 'Government Communications Headquarters', otherwise known as 'GCHQ'), in accordance with EU rules on access to documents.

It's a fairly involved story, well explained by the Ombudsman in her recommendation. One element concerns a letter written by the UK Foreign Secretary. Here's what happened:

The Commission's position is, in essence, that disclosure could negatively impact on the atmosphere of confidence between itself and the Member state concerned, as the EU courts acknowledged in the Petrie and Technische Glaswerke cases. However, the Commission itself admitted that the Member State concerned, that is to say, the United Kingdom, agreed to the disclosure of the said letter. In these circumstances, the Ombudsman is at a loss to understand how the disclosure of this letter could have the negative consequences to which the Commission has referred. In the Ombudsman's view, it is thus clear that the Commission cannot invoke the above-mentioned general presumption in order to refuse to grant access to this letter.

That is, the Commission persisted in claiming that releasing the letter in question would affect the relations with the UK, even though the UK had said that it wouldn't. Here, the Ombudsman rightly calls out the ridiculous position that the Commission has taken. Perhaps more important for the future is the second element of her recommendations:

The Commission should grant access to all the other documents requested by the complainant concerning the mass surveillance of the internet by UK state agencies, or properly justify why, in its view, disclosure has to be refused.

That's a fine slap on the wrist for the Commission, which is being told to follow the rules here -- either by releasing the documents, or by giving a proper reason why not. The details of the case don't really matter; what's important is that O'Reilly is emerging as a powerful force for transparency within the European Union, seriously trying to hold the powerful to account. As one of the few people daring to do that, she deserves the thanks of not just the European public but also of all those elsewhere affected by EU policies.

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Filed Under: eu, eu obudsman, gchq, negotiations, surveillance, tafta, transparency, ttip