E.U. Official Pushes U.S. to Explain Its Surveillance

[EC]

Via the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/world/europe/eu-official-pushes-us-to-explain-its-surveillance.html

BRUSSELS — Amid a growing outcry over American snooping on foreigners that threatens to cloud European-U.S. trade talks and President Barack Obama’s visit to Berlin, the European Union’s top justice official has demanded in unusually sharp terms that the United States reveal what its intelligence is doing with personal information of Europeans gathered under the Prism surveillance program revealed last week.

Viviane Reding, the Union’s combative commissioner of justice, told Attorney General Eric Holder in a letter sent on Monday evening that individual citizens of European countries had the right to know whether their personal information had been part of intelligence gathering “on a large scale.”

In the letter, seen Tuesday by the International Herald Tribune, she also asked what avenues were available to Europeans to find out whether they had been spied on, and whether they would be treated similarly to U.S. citizens in such cases.

“Given the gravity of the situation and the serious concerns expressed in public opinion on this side of the Atlantic, you will understand that I will expect swift and concrete answers,” Mrs. Reding wrote.

Speaking for a continent where snooping carries ghastly echoes of fascist or communist regimes, Mrs. Reding challenged Mr. Holder to answer a list of detailed questions by Friday, when they are expected to speak face-to-face in Dublin at a ministerial meeting scheduled before the Prism spy operation came to light.

In Berlin, where Mr. Obama will speak next week before the Brandenburg Gate, privacy is a highly sensitive political issue and the Prism revelations have stirred a furor.

More at link.

[Oceander]

Speaking for a continent where snooping carries ghastly echoes of fascist or communist regimes, ...

And people wonder why those who've been paying attention have been referring to Obama/democrats/liberals as fascists.

[EC]

Privacy is taken incredibly seriously in most of Europe and breaking privacy is one of the few things that get people really upset. Politicians can have mistresses, fiddle the rules, employ their spouses on their staff and no one really cares. Pry into people's lives and the screams can be heard all the way to China.

Take Google street view, for example. Every home and business has the right to demand their home is pixellated out to protect their privacy. Google must comply with all such requests.

[mountaineer]

Good. I hope they raise a stink when Holder, et al., fail to answer.

[DCPatriot]

LOL!  What's there to explain?

It makes perfect sense to me.

"we have the technology to grab keywords and/or phrases from any wireless correspondence on the planet....we simply grab it all and put it through a strainer....we DON'T read every word of every email or forum post made by some crazy right-winger.

'When we do get a 'hit', we open it up and gather context.  If it's deemed a possible threat, we notify the authorities and deal with it".


++++++++++++++++++++++

The problem is...like what Will Smith's wife in "Enemy of the State"....."Who's watching the watchers who are watching the watchers?"