NSA's surveillance a 'trade barrier' for EU companies: EU official

[bemildred]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency's mass surveillance is a trade barrier for European Internet companies trying to provide services in the United States, a top EU official said on Monday.

U.S. citizens are deterred from using European e-mail providers because they do not get the same protection as they would by using U.S. providers, said Paul Nemitz, a director in the European Commission's justice department.

"The law ... which empowers the NSA to basically grab everything which comes from outside the United States, is a real trade barrier to a European digital company to provide services to Americans inside America," Nemitz, who is overseeing an overhaul of the EU's 20-year-old data protection rules, said at a conference on data protection in Paris.

In other words, an American in the United States using a European service does not have the same level of protection as he would if he used an American service. Using a European service, his communication is transmitted outside the United States, so it is subject to interception.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/08/us-eu-privacy-nsa-idUSKBN0JM1M220141208?rpc=401

[on point]

1. Seems the protection in the USA is mostly a fiction. Also EU has better protection against Corps

The NSA seems to pretty much steal what it wants, regardless of the constitution, or they get the Brits or Aussies to do it for them and then 'learn' of of it from a foreign source. At least the EU has better data privacy laws to protect against corp misuse of personal data.

[bemildred]

2. We have a lawless government, yes, they do what they like.

But my primary interest in this is just watching the diplomats spar. Our government has never felt compelled to obey the law when it felt threatened, and it feels threatened a lot.

[heaven05]

3. there IS some kind of war

going on that we are not privy too. is going on?

[pampango]

4. "The (European)Commission is pushing for Washington to guarantee that it will only access Europeans'

personal data for national security reasons when it is strictly necessary, as it does with U.S. citizens' data.

The EU is also negotiating a new pan-European data- protection law which would impose stiff fines on companies mishandling personal data in Europe.

Companies in both the United States and the EU have lobbied against some parts of the new rules, arguing that they will impose too much red tape on businesses."

What if the EU wants this 'trade barrier' eliminated in the US-EU trade negotiations and insists on a "data- protection law which would impose stiff fines on companies mishandling personal data" in the US just as in Europe? I suspect the US negotiators would not be happy about that.

[Sunlei]

5. would love to use EU 'internet' services including banks, Americans are not allowed because the

American banks want to wring out fee'profits' from Americans instead of paying a couple percent interest earnings.