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12/7/13

NSA Spying On Europe: No EU action only talk and more talk as US Patriot Act Author Sensenbrenner defends NSA - by Monika Ermert

US Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner at a hearing today of the European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Committee (LIBE) on mass surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence services asked the EU politicians “to work pragmatically with the United States to continue balanced efforts to protection our nations” and “rebuild trust while defending civil liberties and national security on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Sensenbrenner’s prepared statement is here. The full archived meeting will be up later.
An author of both the US Patriot Act and new draft legislation to abolish bulk collection of data, the Freedom Act (together with Senator Patrick Leahy), Sensenbrenner was the first US politician to participate in the series of hearings expected to result in recommendations for how the EU can address the mass surveillance revelations.

Sensenbrenner has said that to push the Freedom Act to the Senate and House floors, he and his partners would have to fight in both chambers against the leaders of both parties and the intelligence community. The draft legislation passed recently in the Intelligence Committee would only make legal all the NSA had done legal, he warned.

The Congressman, on the other hand, was evasive with regard to reiterated questions about the double standard with regard to protection of US and EU citizens’ fundamental rights and the lack of redress.

With regard to a long pending negotiation on a transatlantic framework agreement on data protection, he pointed to an upcoming meeting of US Attorney General Eric Holder and European Commission Vice President Viviane Reding next weekend.

The chair of the inquiry meeting, Dutch Liberal Sophie In’t Veld, said in closing that despite the different legal systems there should be ways for the protection of civil liberties. “This will be a precondition for the trans-Atlantic trade negotiations,” she said.

In a related action, the Swiss Privacy Foundation (Digitale Gesellschaft) is pushing for legal charges to be pressed against foreign intelligence services violating Swiss law following the revelations of former National Security Agency (NSA) employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden. At the same time, a US judge ruled today that a case against the NSA by the Electronic Frontier Foundation can proceed. And the European Union raised the issue in Washington this week, while Brazil has opened an investigation of US spying in that country.


In a 7 July letter [pdf, in German] to the Office of the Swiss Federal Prosecutor General, the foundation reported potential violations of Swiss Federal law by illegal intelligence services.

According to recent press reports on surveillance programmes like Prism (from the US services) and Tempora (from British services), there are good reasons to suspect violations of articles 271, 272, 273 of Swiss Penal Code about political, economic and military espionage by a foreign country, the letter to the Federal Prosecutor General reads.

The foundation, of which the Digital Allmend, Swiss Pirates and Swiss Chaos Computer Club are members, also want to see an investigation on the grounds of illegal information-gathering and intrusion of computer systems (Articles 143 and 143bis of the Penal Code, respectively).

So far, Swiss authorities and politicians had not reacted, the activists, said in press statements with regard to the motive for their move. The Swiss activists’ action is not the only legal challenge. The German Prosecutor General has been confirmed to be looking into the issue of potential espionage with regard to the alleged tapping of internet communication from US companies peering at the Frankfurt internet exchange DeCIX.


Note EU-Digest: So far all the European public have heard is" talk and more tal" - no concrete action whatsoever has been taken.

Read more: US Patriot Act Author Sensenbrenner Warns EU Parliament On NSA | Intellectual Property Watch

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