So what happened at the LIBE hearing on mass e-surveillance of EU citizens?

All in all as in most of the cases, The Commission came to present their reports and analytics, and took a good amount of bulling from the Parliament for the insufficient work. That is, of course, very summarized overview of what happened.

One of the major topics was the effect Snowden’s revelations had on the relationship between EU and US and more specifically what is the impact of his disclosures on some of the agreements EU has signed with US, such as the safe-harbor, the TFTP and the PNR agreement for exchanging data. Their usefulness for EU was questioned and one main point was made from a lot of MEPs. Should we completely suspend those agreements and review the statuses of all the transatlantic agreements EU currently participates in, together with US, or should we keep on doing nothing about it, as the Commission’s report suggest by stating that no damages have been detected by the mass surveillance.

Outrageous, isn’t it?

So, European Parliament represented by the MEPs was reminding that the safe-harbor agreement puts in place compatible amount of data to be transferred and how the basic clauses have to be respected, which should mean that personal data related to citizens of the Member States have to be protected accordingly. Personally I believe that the proposed approaches by the Commission are not satisfactory and the Parliament already feels the safe-harbor agreement is no longer safe. There mining data possibilities have 2 negatives: the illegal possibilities, and data mining through companies themselves that already have stored data. Companies are keeping and mining data for different commercial purposes. The majority of the MEPs at the EU Parliament agree the safe harbor agreement should be suspended and replaced by a new one. But the other, also reasonable argument, the Commission has against the suspension of  the agreement, is the fact that the suspension of any agreement would also have economic consequences, and not just political: “If we were to suspend the agreement or recall it, there will be quite an impact on the companies involved in that agreement. In the long term we have to ensure the citizens are better protected in a more serious way.”- The Commission’s representative says.

The second agreement a lot of MEPs expressed desire to be suspended is the TFTP agreement. It is about the relations between EU and US and the payments and transactions data from one country to another, and its initial purpose is fighting terrorism. Here I would like to directly quote one of the Parliament’s representatives:  “American authorities said there is no justification for the suspending of this agreement. However, if we look at the implications of the terrorist attack of the 9/11 and the financial flows running related to those activities, we have to come with a proposal of legal and technical document that is focusing on that field. We have to make sure this agreement is shaped in a way that we have ensured protection of privacy. At the moment the agreement doesn’t target that particular goal. On one hand we have the security of the citizens, but on the other hand we need to clarify how to enter an agreement with US knowing the situation is not the one we would like it to be. So how do we do that? The agreement says that when there is a breach of the agreement it can be suspended, but there is no indication of what should happen when a misuse of data is detected. If we suspend safe harbor, that may boost the credibility of EU authority and help us restore the trust and confidence in our actions. It could also increase the protection level of personal data and will give European authorities the ability to react when there is a misuse of data.”

Having said that I wonder in case safe-harbor agreement is suspended, is there a need for creating a new one, and for what purposes? The legal consequences form NSA affair should also be taken under consideration. Normally it should be in the power of the European Parliament to decide to call for the suspension of this agreement. Since the agreement has existed many have questioned its nature. What is also very interesting to know is that The Commission hasn’t introduced any report on what and how many data has been collected in violation of this agreement.

Others also questioned the existence of the PNR data protection. And additional reasons for its suspension are the budget the member states involved are currently paying and would continue doing so. Because, to be honest, why a country should dedicate budget for something which existence is under question to begin with? Since its initial concept to be used for fighting terrorism is beyond doubtful, shouldn’t it be canceled immediately? We heard how effective this mass surveillance has been numerous times, while there are no records of actual attacks that have prevented/detected thanks to it. The TFTP has also affected exactly 0 attacks. The same would apply to PNR. It seems like those programs are not having any positive effect at all.

Sophie in’t Veld said something very important that we should all have in our minds: “If we allow the massive collection of personal data, then the other side of the coin is transparency. If we give powers to authorities, then we need to give powers to the citizens, as well, against mistakes, abuse and misuse of powers. In practice those agreements are useless, because every time there is any kind of impact of relations, any document related to those relations, those documents are automatically classified as secret.”

to be continued...