US Forbids The European Law Enforcement Agency From Releasing European Documents To European Officials

from the bloody-cheek dept

Europol is probably not very well-known outside the EU. Here's how it describes itself:

Europol is the European Union's law enforcement agency whose main goal is to help achieve a safer Europe for the benefit of all EU citizens. We do this by assisting the European Union's Member States in their fight against serious international crime and terrorism.

The emphasis is in the original. You may notice that it mentions Europe a few times, which underlines the fact that Europol is a European organization based in Europe, run by Europeans and serving Europeans. But the US seems to take a different view:

The head of the EU police agency Europol is taking instructions from the Americans on what EU-drafted documents he can and cannot release to EU lawmakers.

The story in the EUobserver quoted above explains:

The issue came up over the summer when US ambassador to the EU Anthony Gardner told EU ombudsman Emily O'Reilly she cannot inspect an annual Europol report drafted by the agency's own internal data protection review board.

And if you are thinking there might be some top-secret US information in that report, the Dutch MEP Sophie In't Veld says that isn't the case:

"There is no operational information, there is no intelligence, there is nothing in the document. So you really wonder why it is kept a secret."

The problem seems to be simply that the uppity Europeans dared to write their report without asking for US permission first:

The Americans are unhappy because Europol had drafted the report "without prior written authorisation from the information owner (in this case the Treasury Department)."

The fact that the Treasury Department thinks that it "owns" information about how the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) complies with European data protection laws is rather telling. No wonder that back in March, the European Parliament called for the TFTP to be suspended in the wake of revelations that the US was going outside the program, and accessing EU citizens' bank data illegally. The latest high-handed action by the US ambassador to the EU is unlikely to encourage them to change their mind.

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Filed Under: crime, data protection, documents, eu, eu parliament, europol, lawa enforcement, us

Success Of Fringe Parties In European Parliament Raises New Obstacle To TAFTA/TTIP's Progress

from the more-problems dept

As Techdirt has been charting, the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations have already encountered far more resistance than was expected when they began last year. This has mostly centered around the controversial corporate sovereignty provisions, but there are also more general concerns about things like deregulation -- for example, through a new regulatory council. As well as pushback from expected quarters -- civil organizations and NGOs (pdf) -- even some European governments are expressing their doubts. And following last week's elections for the European Parliament, a new obstacle to concluding the agreement has been added: an increased number of European politicians (MEPs) that are skeptical about pan-European projects in general, and TAFTA/TTIP.

Although they hold a relatively small number of seats, they complicate the dynamics of the European Parliament, where neither the center-right group of the European People's Party, nor the center-left group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, has an absolute majority. That means that complex and probably shifting coalitions will be needed to pass new laws in the European Parliament for the next few years.

For many areas, it's not obvious what those coalitions will be, or what policy compromises they will require in order to coalesce. But for one -- that of TAFTA/TTIP -- it's already clear that things have changed. That's because many of the smaller euroskeptic groups have declared their outright hostility to the negotiations. Here, for example is Marine Le Pen, leader of the successful far-right party, Front National, which came first in France, gaining 24 of the 74 seats allotted to that country in the European Parliament:

"I also demand that [the French President] does three things to take Sunday's vote into account: firstly, France halts the transatlantic treaty..."

In Italy, the Movimento Cinque Stelle came second in the polls, and won 17 out of the country's 73 seats. A recent blog post on the subject of TAFTA/TTIP made the party's views clear (original in Italian):

The Euro-American free exchange zone risks binding definitively the fates of Europe and the Euro with those of the US and the dollar, limiting the residual autonomy of an EU less and less integrated internally, and always more at risk of fragmenting.

...

[Movimento Cinque Stelle] is certain that additional liberalization [from TAFTA/TTIP] would damage [Italy] more than other countries; we therefore expect from the [Italian] government clarity and full involvement of Parliament.

Meanwhile, in Spain, a new party called "Podemos" took 5 of the country's 54 seats. Its political program (original in Spanish, pdf) contains the following demand regarding TAFTA/TTIP:

Cessation of the negotiation process for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement.

Now, individually these parties don't amount to much, and even collectively they are still a fringe group. But their existence will add a heightened anti-TTIP edge to the new European Parliament. Moreover, political leaders in France, Italy and Spain are likely to take their views into account in an attempt to minimize damage in local elections. Coupled with the existing groups that have declared their opposition to TAFTA/TTIP -- the European Greens and the left-wing groups -- this means the likelihood of TAFTA/TTIP getting an easy ride in the European Union is now greatly reduced.

That more hostile atmosphere will feed through to the European Commission -- the European body responsible for negotiating TAFTA/TTIP. New Commissioners are being appointed later this year, and the incoming Trade Commissioner is likely to be much more robust in his or her defense of European interests, so as to head off criticism from the new Euroskeptic groups and national leaders made nervous by the success of these parties.

The overall affect of this is likely to be more clashes during the negotiations, and slower progress. That's problematic for TAFTA/TTIP; if there is no deal until 2016, when the next Presidential race begins, a controversial and perhaps deeply unpopular trade agreement will be the last thing that US politicians will want to deal with. TTIP will just be put on hold until after the election -- or maybe even dropped completely.

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Filed Under: eu, eu parliament, politics, right wing, tafta, trade agreements, ttip

US-EU Relations After Two Important Votes In European Parliament: It's (More) Complicated

from the this-will-be-interesting-to-watch dept

Two major votes in the European Parliament -- one on data protection, the other on NSA surveillance -- could have important ramifications for US-EU relations, particularly the current TAFTA/TTIP negotiations. As we wrote back in October last year, the EU's proposed data protection legislation has been one of the most contested proposals in recent years, with massive lobbying from US companies concerned about the effects on their online businesses in Europe. In the end, there was extremely broad support from the European Parliament for the new data protection rules: 621 votes in favor, 10 against and 22 abstentions. Here are the main points as summarized in the official press release:

Data transfers to non-EU countries

To better protect EU citizens against surveillance activities like those unveiled since June 2013, MEPs amended the rules to require any firm (e.g. a search engine, social network or cloud storage service provider) to seek the prior authorisation of a national data protection authority in the EU before disclosing any EU citizen's personal data to a third country. The firm would also have to inform the person concerned of the request.

Deterrent fines

Firms that break the rules should face fines of up to €100 million, or up to 5% of their annual worldwide turnover, whichever is greater, say MEPs. The European Commission had proposed penalties of up to €1 million or 2% of worldwide annual turnover.

Better protection on the internet

The new rules should also better protect data on the internet. They include a right to have personal data erased, new limits to "profiling" (attempts to analyse or predict a person's performance at work, economic situation, location, etc.), a requirement to use clear and plain language to explain privacy policies. Any internet service provider wishing to process personal data would first have to obtain the freely given, well-informed and explicit consent of the person concerned.

The intent is make sure that any personal data from Europe is still protected according to EU norms when it leaves the continent -- specifically, when it is sent across to the US. And to give the new rules some teeth, the maximum fine for non-compliance is 5% of revenues, which for the largest companies like Google and Facebook could be many billions of dollars.

Among the requirements are that the personal data of EU citizens can only be disclosed (to the NSA, say) after permission has been obtained from the national data protection authority, and that EU citizens have a right to request that their personal data is erased. Clearly, these will not go down well with US companies -- or the US government.

However, it's important to note that this vote in the European Parliament is not the end of the story. Although the European Commission is behind the measures, there is another EU body -- the European Council of the European Union -- that must agree. It's made up of the heads of government of ministers from the EU's member states, and among those there are several that will not be happy with some of the proposals (notably the UK.) The unanimity of the MEPs in this vote will put pressure on the European Council to negotiate, but it's not clear at this stage what the final outcome might be.

The other important vote was on the European Parliament's inquiry into the mass surveillance of EU citizens, discussed here recently. The resolution put forward by the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committee of the European Parliament was backed by 544 votes to 78, with 60 abstentions. Its main recommendations are as follows:

Parliament's should withhold its consent to the final Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal with the US unless it fully respects EU fundamental rights, stresses the resolution, adding that data protection should be ruled out of the trade talks. This consent "could be endangered as long as blanket mass surveillance activities and the interception of communications in EU institutions and diplomatic representations are not fully stopped", notes the text.

MEPs also call for the "immediate suspension" of the Safe Harbour privacy principles (voluntary data protection standards for non-EU companies transferring EU citizens' personal data to the US). These principles "do not provide adequate protection for EU citizens" say MEPs, urging the US to propose new personal data transfer rules that meet EU data protection requirements.

The Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP) deal should also be suspended until allegations that US authorities have access to EU citizens’ bank data outside the agreement are clarified, insist MEPs.

Again, these will not be popular with the US government, which is pushing for data protection to be included in the TAFTA/TTIP talks. Similarly, suspending the Safe Harbor framework would be disastrous for the same kinds of companies affected by the data protection measures discussed above, since they would no longer be able to self-certify that their data handling is compliant with EU requirements. As the leader of the civil liberties inquiry, Claude Moraes, explained:

The Snowden revelations gave us a chance to react. I hope we will turn those reactions into something positive and lasting into the next mandate of this Parliament, a data protection bill of rights that we can all be proud of. This is the only international inquiry into mass surveillance. (...) Even Congress in the United States has not had an inquiry.

In other words, the inquiry is a direct result of Snowden's leaks, so it's no surprise that the resolution included the following proposal reflecting that:

The text also calls for a "European whistle-blower protection programme", which should pay particular attention to the "complexity of whistleblowing in the field of intelligence". EU countries are also asked to consider granting whistleblowers international protection from prosecution.

Sadly, though, an amendment calling for Edward Snowden to be offered asylum in the EU was defeated, despite some spirited advocacy by the Green and Pirate parties inside the parliament chamber:

As with the data protection vote, it's not yet clear what effect the approval of the resolution will have. It is not binding, and it would be for the European Commission to implement. That seems unlikely for things like the suspension of Safe Harbor. However, the threat that the European Parliament will withhold its consent to any free trade agreement if data protection is included, or the NSA surveillance is not scaled back, is real. We saw with ACTA that if MEPs vote against an agreement, it is dead. That's bound to make the increasingly troubled TTIP negotiations even more fraught.

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Filed Under: eu, eu parliament, personal data, privacy, tafta, ttip, us

Snowden Gives Testimony To European Parliament Inquiry Into Mass Surveillance, Asks For EU Asylum

from the impressive,-as-ever dept

A few weeks back, we reported that the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee planned to send some questions to Edward Snowden as part of its inquiry on electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens. He's now replied to these, prefacing them with a short statement (pdf -- embedded below.) Although there are no major revelations -- he specifically states that he will not be disclosing anything not already published -- it does contain many important clarifications and interesting comments. For example, he confirms that:

The NSA granted me the authority to monitor communications world-wide using its mass surveillance systems, including within the United States. I have personally targeted individuals using these systems under both the President of the United States' Executive Order 12333 and the US Congress' FAA 702. I know the good and the bad of these systems, and what they can and cannot do, and I am telling you that without getting out of my chair, I could have read the private communications of any member of this [LIBE] committee, as well as any ordinary citizen. I swear under penalty of perjury that this is true

Before moving on to the parliamentarian's questions, he concludes his opening statement as follows:

For the record, I also repeat my willingness to provide testimony to the United States Congress, should they decide to consider the issue of unconstitutional mass surveillance.

The first question from the MEPs on the committee concerns the extent of the cooperation between the NSA and EU member states. Snowden's answer includes some new background information on what's been going on here:

One of the foremost activities of the NSA's FAD, or Foreign Affairs Division, is to pressure or incentivize EU member states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance. Lawyers from the NSA, as well as the UK's GCHQ, work very hard to search for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorized by lawmakers. These efforts to interpret new powers out of vague laws is an intentional strategy to avoid public opposition and lawmakers' insistence that legal limits be respected, effects the GCHQ internally described in its own documents as "damaging public debate."

That makes a mockery of the UK government's insistence that GCHQ's actions were always "within the law": that's only true to the extent that the agency happily exploited to the maximum loopholes its lawyers have spotted in the already weak UK legislation covering this area. In terms of the spying programs, Snowden hints that there's much more to come, and underlines that revealing them is now a matter for journalists, not for him:

There are many other undisclosed programs that would impact EU citizens' rights, but I will leave the public interest determinations as to which of these may be safely disclosed to responsible journalists in coordination with government stakeholders.

Another question probed the options for raising concerns about spying programs, and asked him whether he thought he had exhausted them before deciding to leak the documents himself. He explained that he had reported programs that seemed problematic to "more than ten distinct officials, none of whom took any action to address them." So much for the idea that he didn't try hard enough to use official channels before taking more drastic action. On the question of what the European Parliament could do to help him, Snowden's answer is characteristically self-effacing:

If you want to help me, help me by helping everyone: declare that the indiscriminate, bulk collection of private data by governments is a violation of our rights and must end. What happens to me as a person is less important than what happens to our common rights.

But he then goes on to say:

As for asylum, I do seek EU asylum, but I have yet to receive a positive response to the requests I sent to various EU member states. Parliamentarians in the national governments have told me that the US, and I quote, "will not allow" EU partners to offer political asylum to me, which is why the previous resolution on asylum ran into such mysterious opposition. I would welcome any offer of safe passage or permanent asylum, but I recognize that would require an act of extraordinary political courage.

Sadly, it seems unlikely that political courage will be forthcoming given the extremely weak responses from European governments to the spying leaks. Snowden was also asked about economic espionage:

global surveillance capabilities are being used on a daily basis for the purpose of economic espionage. That a major goal of the US Intelligence Community is to produce economic intelligence is the worst kept secret in Washington.

In this context he makes an astute observation:

Recently, governments have shifted their talking points from claiming they only use mass surveillance for "national security" purposes to the more nebulous "valid foreign intelligence purposes." I suggest this committee consider that this rhetorical shift is a tacit acknowledgment by governments that they recognize they have crossed beyond the boundaries of justifiable activities..

He also elaborates on an early comment that encryption, done properly, does offer a measure of protection against the kind of surveillance programs he has revealed:

The good news is that there are solutions. The weakness of mass surveillance is that it can very easily be made much more expensive through changes in technical standards: pervasive, end-to-end encryption can quickly make indiscriminate surveillance impossible on a cost-effective basis. The result is that governments are likely to fall back to traditional, targeted surveillance founded upon an individualized suspicion.

In other words, encryption brings a double benefit. It helps preserve people's privacy and freedom, and thanks to the high costs of breaking properly-encrypted communications, it encourages governments to move back to the older, more targetted kind of spying that Snowden himself calls "above reproach". Finally, he was asked some more hostile questions from the right-leaning members of the committee, including whether the Russian secret service had approached him:

Of course. Even the secret service of Andorra would have approached me, if they had had the chance: that's their job.

But I didn't take any documents with me from Hong Kong, and while I'm sure they were disappointed, it doesn't take long for an intelligence service to realize when they're out of luck. I was also accompanied at all times by an utterly fearless journalist [WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison] with one of the biggest megaphones in the world, which is the equivalent of Kryptonite for spies. As a consequence, we spent the next 40 days trapped in an airport instead of sleeping on piles of money while waiting for the next parade. But we walked out with heads held high.

As that hints, it's an eloquent and important document that is worth reading in its entirety. It not only adds useful details to many of the facts that have been published earlier, but also underlines the consistently rigorous and moral approach that Snowden has taken from the beginning.

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Filed Under: asylum, ed snowden, eu, eu parliament, gchq, nsa, nsa surveillance, russia, surveillance, testimony

Snowden Says He Is Willing To Answer Questions From European Parliament, Which Also Wants Him To Go There In Person

from the would-that-be-wise? dept

European governments have shown themselves to be extremely reluctant to investigate the NSA and GCHQ surveillance of their populations -- probably because they knew about it and received information as a result. The European Parliament, by contrast, has been active here through its Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee, which is holding an "inquiry on electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens."

One person uniquely well placed to help any such investigation is, of course, Edward Snowden, and it appears he has now agreed to give evidence:

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has confirmed in writing that he is prepared to answer questions from the European Parliament's inquiry into the revelations of mass surveillance by intelligence services. He will at least respond in writing, possibly also via a recorded video message.

That information is posted on The Greens | European Free Alliance site, which goes on to say:

"It is clear that Edward Snowden will only be able to give us comprehensive information if he can be guaranteed a safe stay in Europe for a later in-depth testimony. Next week, the EP's civil liberties committee will decide if the European Parliament will call on EU governments to grant such protection. The Greens have pushed for this and continue to urge all political groups to support the move."

Given that the Bolivian President's jet was re-routed in Europe purely on suspicions that Snowden could be on board -- presumably at the behest of the US -- promises of "protection" won't be worth much. In any case, they're unlikely to be given for the same reasons European governments don't want to investigate this matter.

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Filed Under: edward snowden, eu parliament, gchq, nsa, privacy, whistleblower

Author Of The PATRIOT Act Goes To EU Parliament To Admit Congress Failed, And The NSA Is Out Of Control

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

It's already strange enough that the author of the PATRIOT Act, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, has come out strongly against the NSA's mass spying, said that James Clapper should be fired and prosecuted, and introduced sweeping new legislation that would significantly curtail the NSA's activities. If you've followed civil liberties issues over the past dozen years or so, Sensenbrenner used to be very much in the camp of folks like Rep. Mike Rogers and Senator Dianne Feinstein -- seen as carrying water for the intelligence community (and industry). The change of heart (even if he claims the original PATRIOT Act was never meant to allow this stuff) is quite impressive.

Even so, it's perhaps even more incredible to see that Sensenbrenner has now gone over to the EU Parliament to admit that the NSA is out of control and needs to be reined in. While it doesn't sound like he got all the way to a complete apology, he appears to have come pretty close. According to Bridget Johnson's writeup at the PJ Tatler:

Sensenbrenner told the EU parliamentarians that “Congress knew the country needed new tools and broader authorities to combat those who meant to harm us, but we never intended to allow the National Security Agency to peer indiscriminately into the lives of innocent people all over the world.”

Sensenbrenner noted that he “worked under strict time constraints” to forge the Patriot Act and get it passed.

“I firmly believe the Patriot Act saved lives by strengthening the ability of intelligence agencies to track and stop potential terrorists, but in the past few years, the National Security Agency has weakened, misconstrued and ignored the civil liberty protections we drafted into the law,” he said, adding that the NSA “ignored restrictions painstakingly crafted by lawmakers and assumed a plenary authority we never imagined.”

“Worse, the NSA has cloaked its operations behind such a thick cloud of secrecy that, even if the NSA promised reforms, we would lack the ability to verify them.”

Sensenbrenner said the “constant stream of disclosures about US surveillance since June has surprised and appalled me as much as it has the American public and our international allies.”

Sensenbrenner promised more strict oversight from Congress, but also noted (realistically) that Congress's authority is mostly limited to domestic spying -- and that the US government needed to work more closely with foreign governments concerning foreign spying. Given who's saying it, this is a rather startling statement.

Filed Under: eu, eu parliament, jim sensenbrenner, nsa, patriot act, surveillance

Controversial EU Data Protection Regulation May Be Negotiated In Secret In Breach Of Parliamentary Process

from the snowden-effect dept

Today, the European Parliament held a three-hour long debate on PRISM, Tempora and what the EU response should be. Many wanted TAFTA/TTIP put on hold; others didn't. But one theme cropped up again and again: the need for strong data protection laws that would offer at least some legal protection against massive and unregulated transfer of Europeans' personal data to the US.

As Techdirt readers may recall, the EU's Data Protection Regulation was already contentious even before Ed Snowden revealed the scale of US and UK spying on EU citizens. The new focus on passing it soon only intensifies the battle going on there between those who want to introduce meaningful constraints on what can be done with EU data, and those who seem happier to listen to lobbyists and allow personal information to flow across the Atlantic largely unchecked. But it looks like the politicians have come up with a way to avoid public debate on the matter, as Monica Horten at Iptegrity.com reports:

Secret trilogue negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers are being proposed as a way to get around the impasse of 3000+ amendments on the Data Protection Regulation.

As Horten explains:

trilogues are held in secret, behind closed doors, and the only people allowed in are the rapporteur [the lead MEP representing the European Parliament] and his shadows, the Commissioner, the Presidency, and selected advisers from each institution. The trilogue discussions are not made public.

As well as being reprehensible -- if anything needed to be conducted in public, this did -- it may be against the EU's own rules:

trilogues cannot start before the responsible committee has given a mandate. That's what's a little bit odd here. The mandate can only be given when the committee votes in October.

But the Brussels rumour mill is suggesting that there could be a move to begin trilogues on the Data Protection Regulation before October, without waiting for the committee mandate.

That might solve the problem of avoiding high-profile arguments over what should be in the Regulation, but it would also place anything that comes out of these secret negotiations on a questionable footing:

it would be a breach of Parliamentary process, and especially egregious given that this law deals with fundamental rights.

In any event, the rapporteur does not have to agree to trilogues. It is an option.

In other words, nobody really knows what will happen here. Call it the Snowden Effect: anything relating even indirectly to his case seems to become more complex and unpredictable....

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Filed Under: data protection, eu, eu parliament, procedures, secrecy

EU's Chief Negotiator Has Learned Nothing From ACTA, Will Negotiate TAFTA In Secret

from the not-a-good-idea dept

The EU trade Commissioner, Karel De Gucht, was a driving force behind ACTA, and apparently he's learned nothing about why ACTA failed so spectacularly in Europe. MEP Christian Engstrom pointed out to De Gucht that a big part of the reason why ACTA failed was the lack of transparency, and asked him to be more transparent with TAFTA (the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, but which many are calling TTIP -- for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). De Gucht's response was to insist that he cannot negotiate transparently, and then to outright mock Parliament for suggesting that it has a role in the negotiations.

... on the subject of openness, I have no problem saying what we are doing and what we want to achieve and, when not speaking in public, how I want to achieve this. But you are all politicians. So you should know – and I think you do know – that you cannot negotiate openly. You do not do that in your parties either; you do not do that in your constituencies. You need to focus – and yes, of course we have to report on what we are doing, explaining why we are doing things and why we are making some concessions; we will have to make concessions in the course of these negotiations. But you need a certain degree of confidentiality in negotiations. You also need it because your counterpart is asking for it; if not, you cannot negotiate.

It is interesting that it seems that there is a copy of one of the drafts of the negotiating mandate. So what? It is a draft. The Presidency has, of course, to make sure that they come to an agreement within the Council, so they put forward possible ways to get out of any difficulties that we have to deal with. Immediately, very vocal Members of this Parliament say that this is a scandal and that we are traitors and cannot be trusted. Of course you can trust me, because in the end you can say ‘No’. You have done so in the past. You said ‘No’ to ACTA: I am still not convinced that it was the right choice, but you decided to do so and that was how it was. You have the final word.

But a parliament is not created to negotiate. It is not its job. I think I have been in a parliament for a longer time than most of you –25 years. Maybe there are some who have been in a parliament as long – Mr Brok has already left, but he has certainly been in a parliament for more than 25 years – but not very many. I have never sought to negotiate an agreement from within a parliament because it simply does not work.

What you have to do – and you do it in an eloquent way – is indicate the important points that you want to mention, that you want me to look at and which you will question me about. You will scrutinise me and in the end will vote against me if I do not do that. But a parliament cannot negotiate, because a parliament only exists as a body when it votes. Outside of voting you take up individual positions. You cannot negotiate with 20, 30 or 50 different positions. That is not possible. You need to negotiate on the basis of a mandate, and then, of course, you have to demonstrate that you have been following your mandate.

Of course, MEPs weren't asking to let Parliament negotiate the deal, just for some transparency in what was being negotiated in the public's name. De Gucht's answer is misleading. Plenty of international agreements are negotiated with significantly greater transparency than what happened in ACTA, what's happening now with TPP and what's likely with TAFTA/TTIP. Governments can and should reveal the basic things they are negotiating for, to allow for some level of public comment. But that's not what happens. Things are negotiated in secret, in backrooms, with the help of industry lobbyists, and at the end we're given a "take it or leave it" document, which then (in most cases) is rammed through with little debate. It's the opposite of democracy.

Of course, ACTA showed that the public can rise up and take a stand against this, and Engstrom points out that if they did it for ACTA, they can do it again:

The positive thing about the whole ACTA affair was that there are now hundreds of thousands of European citizens who have, at least once, been demonstrating on the streets of various European cities against the trade agreement. There are lots of citizens now who take an interest in these agreements.

This is a very positive thing, but by insisting on the same kind of secrecy – only handing out secret documents to the members of the INTA Committee – the Commission is setting itself up for the same kind of failure. I would urge you to re-think this and become transparent.

It appears that De Gucht has decided not to re-think this, and to take the position that the ACTA response was an aberration. I'm sure that will play well with all the people who fought against ACTA.

Filed Under: acta, christian engstrom, eu, eu commission, eu parliament, karel de gucht, protests, secrecy, tafta, transparency, ttip

In Defense Of Digital Freedom: It's Time To Get Beyond 'Cyber' Hyperbole

from the speak-up dept

Marietje Schaake, a member of the European Parliament often credited as one of the most tech savvy (and, yes, a regular Techdirt reader) has penned an excellent article, In defense of digital freedom. It's well worth a read, even if it covers many things that regular readers of the site will be familiar with. The key point it makes, however, is that we shouldn't be frightened by all the "cyberwar" FUD out there, which is designed to get us to give up our ideals on internet freedom. It discusses how much hype there is around "cyber" everything, nearly all of it trying to scare people. She admits that there are real threats, but those driving the discussion seem to have little interest in parsing them out from the hype and bluster. She notes that, in this rush for new laws, we seem to ignore that existing infrastructure can actually handle most of the actual problems.

The good news is that we don’t need ‘cyber democracy’ to guarantee ‘cyber security’. In most cases the foundations for resilience are already in our existing laws and regulations. Technologies are an essential part of our daily lives, businesses, education, cultural experiences and political engagement. As a result, resilience and defense need to be integrated and mainstreamed to strengthen both freedom and security.

[....] To prevent fear, hype and incident-driven policies and practices, knowledge, transparency and accountability are needed. Let us not make ‘cyber’ into something completely different, alien or spacy. But rather, let us focus on integrating technological developments in a way that allows us to preserve core (constitutional) principles, democratic oversight, and digital freedoms as essentials in our open societies.

She also notes that much of the hype may be driven by companies and politicians who benefit from such hype, driving new business to companies and passing new laws that give politicians more power. But, she notes, if we make policy based on those two drivers, internet freedom will certainly be put at risk. The unintended consequences are pretty clear:

US government has stated that American made, lawful intercept technologies, have come back as a boomerang when they were used against US interests by actors in third countries.

Other companies, such as Area Spa from Italy designed a monitoring centre, and had people on the ground in Syria helping the Assad government succeed in anti-democratic or even criminal behaviour by helping the crackdown against peaceful dissidents and demonstrators.

One key point she makes is that we need to have a fact-based, careful look at the issues, in which we avoid conflating very, very different things (i.e., random hacking with "war").

To avoid a slippery slope, clear distinctions between various crimes and threats are needed. Economic damage as a result of criminal activity should render a different response than a state-led attack posing national security threats. Yet, at the moment, at least in the public debate, the distinction between various cyber threats is very unclear. Uncertainly can make people feel vulnerable, while it is internet users and citizens that need to be informed and empowered. We need to build resilient and educated societies instead of installing fear.

States also need to prioritise in their partnerships, and look for consistency of actions by different government departments. Recently, the United States chose to sign a bilateral agreement with Russia on combatting Intellectual Property Rights infringements. The agreed cooperation seems in direct contradiction with objectives of the State Department in the field of internet freedom. In Russia, a newly adopted law gives the state the authority to use Deep Packet Inspections in internet traffic.

There's a lot more in the piece as well, and I think many of our readers will find it quite interesting. It's always nice to know that there are some elected officials in the world are trying to base key policy decisions, including those around internet freedom, on reality rather than fear and hype.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, eu parliament, free speech, fud, hacking, internet freedom, marietje schaake

Interesting Move: Peter Sunde, Of The Pirate Bay & Flattr To Run For EU Parliament

from the raising-visibility dept

The Pirate Party of Sweden famously got two MEPs elected to the European Parliament in its last election, and now in an interesting move, Peter Sunde -- probably best known as the former spokesperson for The Pirate Bay -- has announced that he'll be running for the European Parliament in Finland (he was apparently born in Sweden but his ancestry is Finnish). After the Pirate Bay -- which many people incorrectly assume is connected to The Pirate Party -- Sunde went on to found Flattr, a system (which we use here) that helps content creators make money.

I've discovered that people who have never met Peter tend to be very quick to jump to conclusions about him -- almost always entirely incorrect. Amusingly, when I first met him, a few years back in Berlin, he and I were sitting in "the green room" of a conference right before a panel that he was supposed to be on. All of the other panelists on his panel had entered the room and were discussing the panel across the room, without knowing that Peter was sitting right there talking to me. So they started talking about him, and someone explained that "the pirates now hate Peter, because he switched to the other side with Flattr." Of course, nothing is further from the truth. This was never about "sides" but about reality. Peter has always been incredibly focused on recognizing what reality is and trying to respond to reality -- rather than making up artificial boundaries and pretending a fake world must exist where it does not. I'm not sure how well that will play in actual political situations, but it would be great to see what would happen.

The one bit that surprises me, frankly, about the decision to do this via the Pirate Party is that, in the past, Peter has actually distanced himself from The Pirate Party in the past, saying that he preferred other parties, such as the Swedish Green Party. Either way, in my limited experience with him, Peter has always been one of the most perceptive and thoughtful commenters on the state of technology and its impact on society and culture. I've come away from our conversations feeling like I understood a lot more about the world than when the talks started. I recognize that for many who come with pre-conceived notions, it will be easy to try to dismiss him, but for those willing to take a chance and see what he actually has to say, there is tremendous value in hearing what he has to say -- and in a political world, it would be great to see what he could accomplish.

That said, there is the outstanding matter of the ruling against him -- and the fact that he's been sentenced to jail, though it's still never been made clear when or how he will be expected to serve that sentence. I would imagine that somehow, that issue would need to be clarified if his candidacy actually gets any real momentum.

Filed Under: eu parliament, finland, peter sunde, pirate party
Companies: flatter, the pirate bay