FURY erupts on streets of Brussels over greedy USA's data-slurping appetite Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Brussels on Friday to express anger about secret trade talks between the EU, US and others that they believe would damage the 28-member-state bloc's data protection rights. More than 1,000 people marched in the centre of the EU quarter to protest about the Transatlantic Trade and …
You're right, there isn't a way I can disagree with your opinion, which your opinion to me is a fact. This still doesn't change that the author (Jennifer Baker) intentionally attached the USA to draw all those who hate the USA for all things, not just for data slurping.
However, we all know too well that American journalists like to draw hate for other countries with news headlines, so I guess this shouldn't be a surprise. There is just too many hateful headlines written by American journalists in regards to other countries. The world doesn't need another American journalist doing it. American journalists like Jennifer are part of the reason many of the worlds people are hateful to many other countries, not just America Vs. World. These type of headlines are just so typical in the view of American journalists.
Why wouldn't the headline read...
"FURY erupts on streets of Brussels over greedy data-slurping appetite"
Notice the absence of "USA's" in that? This to me is more along my thoughts on the matter, which isn't limited to just 1 country. I'm currently hating all politicians, regardless of flag.
>Notice the absence of "USA's" in that? This to me is more along my thoughts on the matter, which isn't limited to just 1 country.
Except that European companies are bound by European laws and the main route for funnelling personal data out would be via American companies, rather than those from the Far East, Middle East, Oceana, Africa, South America, Canada, Asia or Eurasia.
It mentions the USA because this part of the trade agreement was most likely *introduced* by US companies who want to be able to host EU citizen data (currently the US isn't considered to have sufficient privacy protections for this). As such, including the USA in the headline makes sense since the clause being discussed largely *is* limited to 1 signatory to the trade agreement, very few others have any reason to add it and I don't think any others have enough clout to get this kind of thing added
Ah Please, don't try this - "they hate us because of our freedom ...". That is just silly and leave the painting out too. This is about a trade agreement we all need. Unfortunately too much rubbish has been lobbied into the text by big money and big companies. They fuck you Americans and they try to fuck the EU too. If I am pissed off it's because I feel too many politicians in the EU are either dumb, lazy or bought.
Consulates enjoy the privilege of being "foreign soil" where the hosting country has no rights to access or interfere without explicit permission of the country involved. We need digital consulates where multi-national companies can host foreign data in sandboxed domains that are inviolate by the country where the data is stored. IE, Google or MS could store EU citizen data in "digital consulate" systems (with proper security/encryption) in the US, and the US or other governments could not access such information without proper permissions from the source governments. I don't know if this would work, but technologically, it would be feasible and simplify a lot of current concerns.
That's known as safe harbour. It only works if the host country respects the inviolability. It's not working.
I think the committee of MEPs who looked at this post-Snowden bottled out. Instead of issuing vague threats about looking at it again they should have said safe harbour is cancelled, no new arrangements allowed, a short period allowed to repatriate data from existing arrangements, all data subjects with data currently in safe harbour to be warned and safe harbour status only to be restored if & when the US show that they deserve it.
Given that the entire US power structure, from the White House down to the smallest court of justice, apparently deem that foreign-stored data is available to them by the equivalent of divine right, your proposal smacks of uselessness.
Legally speaking, the USA already has no right to access international data outside of existing protocols established in treaties that were written up and agreed upon decades ago. That is no barrier to the NSA as we now know.
Might as well change the name to NSA consulates for all the good that idea would do.
Consulates aren't actually considered foreign soil, that's just a rule of thumb used to explain a much more complicated legal standard to the lay person. If it were foreign soil, the host country telling ambassadors to get lost and then taking it over would be a declaration of war and invasion of foreign soil, which it isn't.
Whether the data would be protected would very much depend on the host country's legal protections for ambassadors and their communications, and also whether they would actually follow those legal protections. Also, since the servers wouldn't actually be on foreign soil any company hosting there could still be forced to divulge the data
So, your position is that breaking the law successfully means we should legitimise the criminal activity?
Thousands of years of laws against theft and murder have failed too, by your assessment, so we should scrap most criminal law?
The better, if harder answer is to find better ways to enforce the law.
I think he's right because I think he means that data loss continues to happen regardless of laws, because criminals are known for breaking laws. So no matter what laws you make, they won't matter to a criminal. Also, I think he means politicians like to parade new laws like they are the hero and actually care, when they really don't care. Again, I think he's right.
I used to think that even if politicians don't really care, the laws they make might still be helpful. However, I believe now that a politician will nearly never propose a law unless it's cleared by corporations and/or the defense department. Which ultimately means that almost all new laws involving citizens are basically meaningless for citizens, with the exception of certain defense tatics. Of course there is some exceptions as well for civil life, like child abuse, drug abuse, etc. But on this particular subject, personal data and privacy, again, I think he's right....they don't mean shit because both corporations and the defense departments don't want privacy, they want to put you on a leash.
Just the other day I saw a picture of a policeman I think in New York City wearing a camera on his chest, which is completely Storm Trooper style. The level of anitrust governments have with their citizens is becoming very scary, VERY scary. And who ultimately clears the choice a policeman has to wear a camera on their chest....politicians!
The point of the police cameras is supposed to be to hold the police accountable, they're expected to video any encounters with the public so there's evidence of what happened during it.
Also, even if people do things illegally, they can be punished when caught. The whole point of this is that they're trying to make something legal despite it being in conflict with the rights EU citizens are supposed to have, resulting in far reduced legal protections for us. For example, a while back Facebook was required to start doing data dumps of the data they stored on EU users when those users requested it because EU privacy law required it, even though they didn't want to be giving that kind of data to their users. While yes data can be lost or illegally shared, when caught users can hold companies to account as long as the law is on their side. This is an attempt to move the law more over to the side of the companies side, in spite of the rights of the users
Considering GCHQ is more than happy to pipe every bit of data they can over to US officials, the EU privacy laws are a large part of what *protects* us from this kind of agreement. Also Westminster has always supported this kind of bill, and supported the previous incarnations too
Connecting the TTIP trainwreck to the recently reported VAT MOSS issue, it's hard to understand how the EU can require non-EU businesses, which are commonly US business, to charge VAT at individual member state rates, but do away with data protection requirements. In fact, an acquantance of my SO says she has checked with her congressperson who confirms that personally identifiable information can now be held on US systems. Now it could be bravado, but it seems the US already think the deal is done. I suppose it is as far as the UK is concerned, as that toffs in government seem gleeful to bend over, but maybe, just maybe, this can also be defeated by democratic oversight.
The current standards are pretty weak and are observed largely in the breach. Things will change in 2016 when the new directive is due to come into effect. Then there'll be squeals as to whether US companies' can appeal to arbitration if onerous EU law affects their profits.
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Brussels on Friday to express anger about secret trade talks
Not to say that this isn't an important issue, but I don't think you'd get much of a turn-out for a demo about trade talks in Britain. What's more, it seems to have been quite a demo: the picture at the head of the article appears to show riot police and tear gas. Those Belgians must be politically switched-on to an impressive degree.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
