The European Unions highest court today made clearonce againthat the US governments mass surveillance programs are incompatible with the privacy rights of EU citizens. The judgment was made in the latest case involving Austrian privacy advocate and EFF Pioneer Award winner Max Schrems. It invalidated the Privacy Shield, the data protection deal that secured the transatlantic data flow, and narrowed the ability of companies to transfer data using individual agreements (Standard Contractual Clauses, or SCCs).
Despite the many we are disappointed statements by the EU Commission, U.S. government officials, and businesses, it should come as no surprise, since it follows the reasoning the court made in Schrems previous case, in 2015.
Back then, the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) noted that European citizens had no real recourse in US law if their data was swept up in the U.S. governments surveillance schemes. Such a violation of their basic privacy rights meant that U.S. companies could not provide an adequate level of [data] protection, as required by EU law and promised by the EU/U.S. Privacy Safe Harbor self-regulation regime. Accordingly, the Safe Harbor was deemed inadequate, and data transfers by companies between the EU and the U.S. were forbidden.
Since that original decision, multinational companies, the U.S. government, and the European Commission sought to paper over the giant gaps between U.S. spying practices and the EUs fundamental values. The U.S. government made clear that it did not intend to change its surveillance practices, nor push for legislative fixes in Congress. All parties instead agreed to merely fiddle around the edges of transatlantic data practices, reinventing the previous Safe Harbor agreement, which weakly governed corporate handling of EU citizens personal data, under a new name: the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield.
EFF, along with the rest of civil society on both sides of the Atlantic, pointed out that this was just shuffling chairs on the Titanic. The Court cited government programs like PRISM and Upstream as its primary reason for ending data flows between Europe and the United States, not the (admittedly woeful) privacy practices of the companies themselves. That meant that it was entirely in the government and U.S. Congress hands to decide whether U.S. tech companies are allowed to handle European personal data. The message to the U.S. government is simple: Fix U.S. mass surveillance, or undermine one of the United States major industries.
Five years after the original iceberg of Schrems 1, Schrems 2 has pushed the Titanic fully beneath the waves. The new judgment explicitly calls out the weaknesses of U.S. law in protecting non-U.S. persons from arbitrary surveillance, highlighting that:
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Get our best delivered to your inbox.
Section 702 of the FISA does not indicate any limitations on the power it confers to implement surveillance programmes for the purposes of foreign intelligence or the existence of guarantees for non-US persons potentially targeted by those programmes.
and
...neither Section 702 of the FISA, nor E.O. 12333, read in conjunction with PPD28, correlates to the minimum safeguards resulting, under EU law, from the principle of proportionality, with the consequence that the surveillance programmes based on those provisions cannot be regarded as limited to what is strictly necessary.
The CJEU could not be more blunt in its pronouncements: but it remains unclear how the various actors that could fix this problem will react. Will EU data protection authorities step up their enforcement activities and invalidate SCCs that authorize data flows to the U.S. for failing to protect EU citizens from U.S. mass surveillance programs? And if U.S. corporations cannot confidently rely on either SCCs or the defunct Privacy Shield, will they lobby harder for real U.S. legislative change to protect the privacy rights of Europeans in the U.S.or just find another temporary stopgap to force yet another CJEU decision? And will the European Commission move from defending the status quo and current corporate practices, to truly acting on behalf of its citizens?
Whatever the initial reaction by EU regulators, companies and the Commission, the real solution lies, as it always has, with the United States Congress. Today's decision is yet another significant indicator that the U.S. government's foreign intelligence surveillance practices need a massive overhaul. Congress half-heartedly began the process of improving some parts of FISA earlier this yeara process which now appears to have been abandoned. But this decision shows, yet again, that the U.S. needs much broader, privacy-protective reform, and that Congress inaction makes us all less safe, wherever we are.
Link:
EU Court Again Rules That NSA Spying Makes U.S. Companies ...
- Iraq to NSA spying: The biggest revelations by Julian Assanges WikiLeaks - Al Jazeera English - June 26th, 2024
- Just the Facts: What We Know About the NSA Spying on Americans - December 28th, 2022
- Big Brother Has Hacked the Constitution - Tenth Amendment Center - September 13th, 2022
- Julian Assange is my husband his extradition is an abomination - The Independent - June 29th, 2022
- NSA Surveillance: Why NSA Spying On Us - RedefinePrivacy - April 28th, 2022
- Edward Snowden - Wikipedia - April 13th, 2022
- EU/US Say They've Agreed To A New Privacy Shield That Doesn't Seem To Deal With Any Of The Problems Of The Old One - Techdirt - April 1st, 2022
- Global surveillance disclosures (2013present) - Wikipedia - January 15th, 2022
- Four refugees who sheltered Snowden find sanctuary in Canada - FRANCE 24 - October 5th, 2021
- Section 215 Expired: Year in Review 2020 - EFF - December 31st, 2020
- America's Nihilism blues | The Retriever - The Retriever - November 18th, 2020
- The socialist perspective in the 2020 US elections - World Socialist Web Site - WSWS - November 7th, 2020
- Big Brother is spying on you - Hillsboro Times Gazette - October 28th, 2020
- From Scandals To War, Here Are The 15 Best Documentaries Of All Time According To Rotten Tomatoes - ScoopWhoop - September 29th, 2020
- Guest view: Should Trump pardon Edward Snowden? - The-review - August 30th, 2020
- Screen Talk 300: Revisiting the Biggest Stories of the Last Six Years - IndieWire - August 30th, 2020
- Trump Wants to Build a Wall Around the Internet, How Worried Should The U.S. Be? - Gizmodo Australia - August 21st, 2020
- A list of known NSA spying techniques - Tumbex - July 27th, 2020
- How does NSA spying effect you? (Infographic) - ProPrivacy.com - July 22nd, 2020
- NSA Spying Federal Jack - July 22nd, 2020
- NSA Spokesman Accidentally Admits that the Government Is ... - July 22nd, 2020
- Liz Cheney the latest target of Trump loyalists which is enough to label her voice of reason on the left - RT - July 21st, 2020
- Op-ed: Congress must act now to rein in the NSA's ... - July 18th, 2020
- Join EFF's 30th Anniversary Livestream and Party Like It's 1990! - EFF - July 9th, 2020
- 8 Ways The NSA is Spying on You Right Now - July 9th, 2020
- The Lizard People Invented Bitcoin: Why Crypto is a Hotbed for Conspiracy Theories - Cointelegraph - June 3rd, 2020
- Made-up murder claims, threats to kill Twitter, rants about NSA spying anything but mention 100,000 US virus deaths, right, Mr President? - The... - May 29th, 2020
- Author David Rohde on what the deep state is and why Trump is obsessed with it - Vox.com - May 13th, 2020
- Yes, Section 215 Expired. Now What? - EFF - April 17th, 2020
- More Than Half of Adults Say Their Video Calls Are Secure, Despite Hacking Concerns - Morning Consult - April 12th, 2020
- Edward Snowden warns COVID-19 could give governments invasive new data collection powers that will last long a - Business Insider India - March 30th, 2020
- ASSANGE EXTRADITION: An Extension of the US War on Terror - Consortium News - March 27th, 2020
- Assange's Extradition: An Escalation of the US War on Terror - Common Dreams - March 27th, 2020
- Presidential Candidates Should Declare Their Stance on "Costly Failure of the NSA's Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance Program," Says... - February 27th, 2020
- LTE: The Deep State is alive in well - GoErie.com - February 27th, 2020
- Pilger, Burchett and Assange: Three Extraordinary Australian Journalists That Spoke Truth to Power - Mintpress News - February 12th, 2020
- Edward Snowden warns that Assange and Greenwald prosecutions mark new stage in assault on press freedom - World Socialist Web Site - January 31st, 2020
- 8 Ways the NSA Is Spying on You Right Now | ExpressVPN - January 19th, 2020
- Trump administration to illegally divert an additional $7.2 billion to border wall construction - World Socialist Web Site - January 19th, 2020
- So, who has been wiretapping the prime minister? - Free Malaysia Today - January 9th, 2020
- Tucker Carlson Patrick McGeehan and Rising Deep Red State Revulsion Against the Neocons - Morgan County USA - January 8th, 2020
- 11 Tech Trends We Need to Dump in 2020 - PCMag AU - December 26th, 2019
- If Devin Nunes wants to call the FBI 'dirty cops', he better be ready to propose a solution - The Independent - December 19th, 2019
- The Simpsons even predicted the Anthony Joshua v Andy Ruiz Jr rematch - GIVEMESPORT - December 9th, 2019
- Nov. 21 Letters to the Editor | Opinion - Lewiston Morning Tribune - November 21st, 2019
- 5 Myths About the National Security Agency - ClearanceJobs - November 5th, 2019
- Democrats Make a Huge Mistake If They Just Focus Impeachment on the Ukraine Scandal - CounterPunch - November 5th, 2019
- Democrats make a huge mistake if they just focus impeachment on the Ukraine scandal - NationofChange - November 2nd, 2019
- Democrats are Making a Huge Mistake on Impeachment if They Focus on the Ukraine Scandal - ThisCantBeHappening! - October 31st, 2019
- NSA Spying on Americans Is Illegal | American Civil ... - October 7th, 2019
- Opinion: Why NSA spying puts the U.S. in danger ... - May 31st, 2019
- NSA spying? Everyone does it. - CSMonitor.com - May 26th, 2019
- NSA spying fiasco sending customers overseas | Computerworld - May 23rd, 2019
- NSA Spying Violated The Constitution - Business Insider - May 13th, 2019
- Judge Dodges Legality of NSA Mass Spying, Citing Secrecy ... - May 3rd, 2019
- Judge who ruled against NSA spying passes on Corsi case ... - April 5th, 2019
- Hearing Friday in Jewel NSA Spying Lawsuit: EFF Asks Court ... - March 28th, 2019
- Video: New NSA Spying Revelations Spark Call for More ... - March 19th, 2019
- NSA spying scandal: what we have learned | US news | The ... - March 8th, 2019
- Clapper claims he didnt lie about NSA spying on ... - March 7th, 2019
- NSA spying program ended six months ago, maybe permanently ... - March 7th, 2019
- Clapper: I Didnt Lie to Congress About NSA Spying I ... - March 7th, 2019
- Congress Reauthorizes NSA Spying on Americans American ... - March 5th, 2019
- European officials lash out at new NSA spying report - CBS ... - March 1st, 2019
- Huawei: U.S. Is Afraid We Will Stop NSA Spying -- It Has ... - February 28th, 2019
- Obama Justifies NSA Spying: Paul Revere Did It First - February 28th, 2019
- Mass government surveillance pros and cons: NSA spying ... - February 22nd, 2019
- Judge: NSA spying almost Orwellian, likely unconstitutional - February 12th, 2019
- The NSAs Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities - August 5th, 2018
- The Trump Administration Is Hiding a Crucial Report on NSA ... - July 16th, 2018
- Obama knew of NSA spying on Merkel and approved it, report ... - July 16th, 2018
- AT&T collaborates on NSA spying through a web of secretive ... - June 28th, 2018
- Potential NSA spying hub revealed in D.C. AT&T building ... - June 28th, 2018
- RNC condemns NSA spying in huge turnaround | MSNBC - April 2nd, 2018
- Stop the Expansion of NSA Spying - eff.org - February 25th, 2018
- Congress demanded NSA spying reform. Instead, they let you ... - January 21st, 2018
- National Security Agency - Wikipedia - January 17th, 2018
- Dont Reauthorize NSA Spying in a Must-Pass Funding Bill ... - December 21st, 2017
- FACT CHECK: Did Clapper Get 'Caught Lying To Congress'? - The Daily Caller - August 24th, 2017
- The struggalo is real as radical ICP fans mobilize online - A.V. Club - August 18th, 2017