European politicians on Monday called for the immediate suspension of a data-sharing agreement between the U.S. and the European Union following more revelations of spying by the U.S. National Security Agency.
The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) provides the U.S. Treasury with data stored in Europe by the international bank transfer company Swift. However documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and reported by The Washington Post indicate the NSA spied on Swift.
The company is included in an NSA training manual for new agents on how to target private computer networks, according to the documents.
“I think there is more than enough evidence to call for a suspension,” said Dutch Member of the European Parliament Sophie In’t Veld. “Formally, it is for the Commission to propose the suspension and then for the Council to decide. But we in Parliament can call for the suspension in the strongest terms.”
German MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht agreed. “The revelations about NSA surveillance of Swift make a mockery of the E.U.’s agreement with the U.S. The NSA surveillance is an open breach of the agreement and further undermines the already insufficient data protection given to European citizens under the deal,” he said in a statement.
The TFTP agreement was controversial from the start with the EU Parliament only reluctantly agreeing to it in 2010.
One senses, based on the sentiments expressed around us in Europe, and also from spontaneous public reactions, which flare-up on occasions, such as the news about the NSA spying on European Citizens, Governments and Industry data, the Middle East crises, or revelations about US financial and corporate entities exploiting Europe as a tax haven, that whatever way you look at it, the US has too much of an engrained influence on every level of European life. This might be beneficial to the US, but it is not helpful to the European Union in finding its own independent identity
The Genie, however, is starting to come out of the bottle and will hopefully push the European political establishment in taking a more independent posture when dealing with the US and in forging a stronger European Union.
As a European politician said: "Europe is in dire need of their own Boston Tea-Party".
EU-Digest
The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) provides the U.S. Treasury with data stored in Europe by the international bank transfer company Swift. However documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and reported by The Washington Post indicate the NSA spied on Swift.
The company is included in an NSA training manual for new agents on how to target private computer networks, according to the documents.
“I think there is more than enough evidence to call for a suspension,” said Dutch Member of the European Parliament Sophie In’t Veld. “Formally, it is for the Commission to propose the suspension and then for the Council to decide. But we in Parliament can call for the suspension in the strongest terms.”
German MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht agreed. “The revelations about NSA surveillance of Swift make a mockery of the E.U.’s agreement with the U.S. The NSA surveillance is an open breach of the agreement and further undermines the already insufficient data protection given to European citizens under the deal,” he said in a statement.
The TFTP agreement was controversial from the start with the EU Parliament only reluctantly agreeing to it in 2010.
One senses, based on the sentiments expressed around us in Europe, and also from spontaneous public reactions, which flare-up on occasions, such as the news about the NSA spying on European Citizens, Governments and Industry data, the Middle East crises, or revelations about US financial and corporate entities exploiting Europe as a tax haven, that whatever way you look at it, the US has too much of an engrained influence on every level of European life. This might be beneficial to the US, but it is not helpful to the European Union in finding its own independent identity
The Genie, however, is starting to come out of the bottle and will hopefully push the European political establishment in taking a more independent posture when dealing with the US and in forging a stronger European Union.
As a European politician said: "Europe is in dire need of their own Boston Tea-Party".
EU-Digest
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