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| Chilling Effects Clearinghouse > International > Weather Reports > How Europe reacted to the PRISM scandal | Location: https://www.chillingeffects.org/international/weather.cgi?WeatherID=771 |
Maria Serena Ciaburri, July 03, 2013
Abstract: With the aim of observing the climate online we already presented the PRISM case in a previous blogpost . Now that are passed more than two weeks after the revelation about PRISM and now that Obama has all eyes on his nation, we want to collect foreign thoughts and European opinions to go deepen and provide a wider perspective of this case.
On Tuesday, June 11, the European Commission held a debate about the American "Data-gate", at the end of which Tonio Borg (the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy) presented the following conclusions: "Programs such as PRISM and the laws on the basis of which such programs are authorized potentially endanger the fundamental right to privacy and to protection of EU citizens. The PRISM case also highlights the difference between the EU and the US approaches to data protection. Whereas in the US legal system, only US citizens and resident benefit from constitutional safeguards, in the European Union everyone's personal data and the confidentiality of their communications are recognized and protected as fundamental rights, irrespective of their nationality". The European Commission required some clarifications about the respect of European citizens and about the conduct of the surveillance programs. They stated that they want to know if the data requested by the NSA were picked up in bulk or if they were related to single cases and based on real suspects. The European Commissioners are persuaded that "non-European companies when offering goods and services to European consumers will have to apply the EU data protection law in full- a broad definition of personal data, clear responsibilities for processors and strong rules for international transfers".
The same day, the European Commissioner Viviane Reding showed her worries about the PRISM scandal posting this tweet: "This case shows why a clear legal framework for the protection of personal data is not a luxury but a necessity". Furthermore, different political personalities thought that from the America's point of view non-American citizens had less rights than the American ones. Some of them, in fact, like Dutch member of European Parliament Sophie In't Veld, believed that Obama's message to his nation meant: "don't worry, we are not spying you as citizens, we are only spying on foreigners". The ex-Italian Information Commissioner Francesco Pizzetti and the French Member of the European Parliament Marie-Christine Vergiat also interpreted Obama's words in a critical way. From their perspective, it seems that American Government recognizes as real citizens only the American ones.
It was because of statements like these and because of the general displeasure about America's behavior that Ms. Reding asked clarifications about data protection during the meeting with Eric Holder (the Attorney General of the United States) in Dublin, on June 13. The European commissioners Cecilia Malmstrom (Home Affairs) and Viviane Reding decided on this occasion to establish a transatlantic commission with the American commissioners Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano (Secretary of Homeland Security) to analyze all the aspects of the PRISM case.
To reassure Europe, during the meeting , on June 19, between Obama and the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, the President of the United States claimed that he knows very well the Intelligence's work and so he believes that they have reached an "appropriate balance" between security and respect of the privacy. President Obama defended NSA's work because, he stated, in this way "we've saved lives. We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany. So lives have been saved. And the encroachment on privacy has been strictly limited by a court-approved process to relate to these particular categories." At the end of the speech, he also shown the desire to cooperate and open a debate with Europe to reassure people about this surveillance services.
Chilling Effects strongly believes in transparency, but also strives to find the appropriate balance between that and users' privacy. That's a major reason we were interested in this case. Because behavior online can often be more complicated than that in the physical world, helping people to understand their rights/duties while keeping them informed about what is happening to online discourse is one of the tasks that Chilling Effects is trying to achieve.
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