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US Government demands direct police access to European biometric data [pdf]
- tmpburning 4y agoWhich country(ies) has the most minimalastic set of laws and more importantly, no secret laws?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- diimdeep 4y agoUS government demands direct police access to European biometric data. The "Enhanced Border Security Partnership" poses an unprecedented threat to civil liberties in Europe. Talk is streaming right now https://streaming.media.ccc.de/jev22/hip1 https://streaming.media.ccc.de/jev22/hip1 https://digit.so36.net https://digit.so36.net https://pretalx.c3voc.de/hip-berlin-2022/talk/JYX7JA/ https://pretalx.c3voc.de/hip-berlin-2022/talk/JYX7JA/
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoI think it is vital we continue to discuss it here, but at the same time my conversations with my extended family show that people overall do not share my concerns over these at all. I do not get upset, because coming from a former soviet union country, I am trying hard to understand their frame of mind ( partially to see if there is a way to counter it ) and lot of it seems to a result from a deep trust in the system. In fact, just yesterday, the related conversation resulted in and I am paraphrasing 'you need to let go of some control and trust the system.' I will never understand this level of trust in your own government institutions.
- jylam 4y agoIt's not even your own government institutions, it's another totally separate government asking for your biometric data.
- ryandrake 4y agoDisclaimer: I’m totally against any normalization of the collection/sharing of biometric data. But just to play Devil’s Advocate: Let’s say I’m a boring white midwestern HVAC contractor with a mortgage and 2.5 kids. Big Bad China acquires a picture of my face and my fingerprints. Also my DNA, why not, just for argument’s sake! I never plan to visit China. How does this biometric sharing affect me, my rights, my safety, monetarily or otherwise? Connect the dots for me because it’s hard for me to argue the privacy angle if I can’t even explain the danger of a simple scenario like this.
- mach1ne 4y agoWrite some anti-CCP stuff on social media, become randomly targeted by China's "Magic Methods". Whole lot easier when they have your biometric data.
- robin_reala 4y agoThe typical counter argument goes something like China installs a webcam in your bathroom and broadcasts the stream on purely national TV. How does that affect you? It’s just some personal video that’s never going impinge on your life. Another way of putting it: all personal information should by default be kept private, until there’s a specific need from you for that information to be processed by known people.
- sneak 4y agoThis doesn't actually answer the question, though, as people value their home interior video privacy a lot more than they value their biometric privacy.
- lodovic 4y ago
- jimbob45 4y agoAm I the only one that doesn't really consider "fingerprints and facial images" to be biometric data? When I think "biometric", I think hair samples, DNA, blood type, even though I know fingerprints and eye color are technically biometric.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 4y agoWhat distinction would you draw between these two groups of data?
- jimbob45 4y agoIntrusively versus non-intrusively acquired? It's just a feeling I have and I don't think that I'm alone on this.
- counttheforks 4y agoAnd you think obtaining a hair sample is somehow intrusive?
- DocTomoe 4y agoJust cutting some hair won't do it. Given that DNA is in the follicle, you would have to extract a hair, e.g. pull it out. Doing so without consent or demanding it is a violation of medical ethics and/or assault.
- ceejayoz 4y agoYou drop hairs all the time. Same for DNA; cops regularly get people by grabbing their coffee cup out of the trash.
- 4y ago
- lizardactivist 4y agoSay no and hang up. If they start something, respond in kind, and ask our allied countries to stand united. The US needs the world far, far more than the world needs the US, and it's time the world realizes this. Forcing this nation of war-criminals and foreign policy bullies in line is long overdue.
- emodendroket 4y agoDon’t hold your breath.
- dwhitney 4y agoAs a US citizen, I whole heartedly agree, and I assume our government would do the same.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoIt is possible that you are missing a developing new axis of powers forming, which is part of the reason why those policies are slowly being implemented. As a globe, we are being divided into spheres of influence and US/EU happens to be one of those.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- diimdeep 4y agoHere is recording https://streaming.media.ccc.de/jev22/relive/49143 https://streaming.media.ccc.de/jev22/relive/49143
- FpUser 4y agoStarting from WWI western world is moving from what was basically complete freedom of movement to a corral. Think the best response would be something in line of go fuck yourself. No visa waiver - be my guest and have your tourism industry go belly up. Once tourism industry goes economic cooperation might eventually follow. Maybe this will teach our masters a bit. P.S. Being originally from USSR freedom of movement was one of the things I've admired greatly about the west. After 30 years it is being vaporized in front of my eyes. This is insanity and is very sad. And we are doing this crap to ourselves. Osamas and Putins of the world must be having time of their lives.
- __jambo 4y agoI hope we see some strong posturing from EU leaders. It seems like Europe is trying at least to fight in the right direction on this, while the anglosphere slowly becomes another version of China.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoThis is asuming that EU will work in their (our) interest. For me it seems that most of EU works with interests of other actors, especially US, from Ursula downwards, so they might give the US access and ignore their own people... again.
- sofixa 4y agoWhere is this coming from? The vast majority of what the EU does doesn't concern anyone but the EU, and is sometimes actively hurting non-EU entities like American corporations. Be it the GDPR, the Digital Markets or Services Acts, the Covid recovery funds, farming subsidies, various projects to improve random hyper local infrastructure, etc etc etc.
- lakomen 4y agoIdk if you've been asleep the last 10 months regarding the politics of Ukraine, which isn't even an EU member. VdL bends over backwards on anything the US asks of her. How she even became the head of the EU council can only be explained with corruption. And that's also the main reason why the right is on the rise on the EU, because they don't want an undemocratic overlord. The irony is real.
- counttheforks 4y agoLet's start with having the US register who lives in which state maybe?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- KirillPanov 4y agoWhy would they bother registering that? They already know it from cell phone location data.
- nixgeek 4y agoProbably the most interesting part of this is if states don’t integrate by 2027 they will no longer be eligible for the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). That adds a lot of friction for citizens of that state to travel to the U.S. for any reason.
- exitheone 4y agoAs a regular US traveler, I'm ok with that if the alternative is handing over EU citizens data to a known bad actor.
- nixgeek 4y agoI mean it sounds like you’d be giving up all the same data just through a slower process. From the presentation: For all travellers (and asylum seekers) before entry into USA Hit/ No hit query of the foreign databases On hit: retrieval of existing data record in pull procedure A part of visa issuance by a U.S. Embassy is a background check against both US databases and those of the local country. I believe all visa appointments perform digital capture of fingerprints, face, along with anything on an e-Passport. So this gets the U.S. nearer to equivalence in VWP with what they can already do with the visa processes? If you don’t want the U.S. to hold your biometric information it sounds like you just won’t be traveling to that country any longer.
- jalk 4y agoExactly and you shouldn’t have traveled to the US after 2007 if the biometrics was your concern. Fingerprints and photo have been captured by the immigration officer at the port of entry, regardless of visa type, since that time. Received a long term B1 visa in 2011, after going to the embassy and had the biometrics taken. Reapplied in July 2022, and was able to get a waiver for the in-person interview, as the embassy still had my biometrics (my travel would have been delayed by several months otherwise) So the change is the “watch list” lookup / handover of records for hits. Hate to be in the camp saying that “if you haven’t done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about” but I honestly assumed that those checks were already done.
- 4y ago
- hardlianotion 4y agoOne question that always seems to be unclear and insufficiently negotiated is reciprocity. What is the US going to offer in return. If they do offer to reciprocate, it actually needs to be delivered before the deal is live. That said, I think it is a shitty deal for these leaky, insecure, bad faith entities to be able to negotiate off to the side with our sensitive personal data like this.
- flanflan 4y ago> What is the US going to offer in return. Nothing, it's a hostage situation.
- hardlianotion 4y agoThen we should decouple a little bit.
- flanflan 4y agoProbably, and the EU was talking a big game about that a few years ago. But between Nordstream 2 and the Ukraine war the EU seems to have shown how willing it actually is to decouple...
- miguelazo 4y agoExactly. Even when the harm to Europe is as blatant as the examples you cited, the cowardly leadership does nothing. This lack of representation for citizens' interests will lead to a lot of resentment and perhaps even extremism, as it has in the past.
- jeltz 4y agoBut is it really? The EU can just respond with: "no". And while that would hurt the economy of the EU it would also hurt the economy of the US. I do not really see any reason for the EU to say yes to this unless the EU gets something in return.
- muxator 4y agoHow would the US react to the same request from EU's police? Would they give direct access to their people's biometric data? Conversely, what would the EU do if that same request came from another nation instead of the USA? What about Brazil, Japan, China?
- wheelerof4te 4y agoI know those are all rethorical questions, but for any anglophiles here: The answer to all these questions would be hard "No.", possibly followed by sanctions for even daring to ask them.
- hardlianotion 4y agoAnglophiles?
- wheelerof4te 4y agoNorth American and British boot lickers.
- marricks 4y agoGiven the US has army bases all in and around Europe, more than any European country, I bet the US wouldn't comply. It's rarely talked about, but you gotta imagine, the fact the US controls most of the land and sea is a big factor in how diplomatic issues are resolved. I don't think this is a great thing, btw.
- johnywalks 4y ago> US controls the land and seas of most of the Earth They do so with the help of allies which they seem to forget.
- bombolo 4y agoAnd by "help" you mean harass civilians and get away with it, and bomb the middle east.
- Kukumber 4y agoThey'll accept and they'll give them the keys, oh wait, Microsoft already has it all
- sneak 4y agoWhat Microsoft doesn't have, AWS does. Several european governments store all passenger/traveler data (including biometric photo scans at the very least) in S3.
- Kukumber 4y agoOh you are right, it was the Health Data Hub that i had in mind, and looks like the plan was scrapped [1] [1] - https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/french-decision-to-have-microsoft-host-health-data-hub-still-attracts-criticism/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/frenc...
- jacquesm 4y agoI sincerely hope that the EU will give the appropriate but unprintable response to this request. At the time the biometric data was first collected plenty of people warned about this exact thing and we were repeatedly assured that it would never happen. Let's see if that is still true today. Never is such a long time...
- bodhiandphysics 4y ago[flagged]
- Filligree 4y agoI have no interest in visiting the USA. It hasn't been "the land of the free" for a long time now.
- jeltz 4y agoSure, why not? If the US wants to go isolationist I say we should let them.
- jacquesm 4y agoI haven't been back there since 2007 and have no intention to ever go back there. I missed a couple of funerals of friends because of that but the typical 'welcome' (I use the term loosely) afforded by DHS to visitors to the USA has persuaded me that I have better things to do with my life. The decision not to re-visit was made somewhere between the point where my shoes were confiscated because they might be used as weapons and the time when I spent 6 hours on a bridge trying to get into Canada because they could not imagine a person carrying a Dutch passport had a legitimate interest in crossing the border into Canada. At one point I had a company in the US, spent a ton of money there annually and was seriously considering immigration, go figure.
- jeremyjh 4y agoDid you read TFA? It would only be used for people entering the US.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoEuropeans can trust the US government to keep this data as secure as they keep data on Americans https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chinese-hack-of-government-network-compromises-security-clearance-files/2015/06/12/9f91f146-1135-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chine...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cm2187 4y agoor more recently https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2022/afghanistan-biometrie https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2022/afghanistan-biometrie
- sschueller 4y agoHow did that go with the bio-metric data you collected of the Afghan population? /s [1] https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2022/afghanistan-biometrie https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2022/afghanistan-biometrie
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Ekaros 4y agoPlease deliver first the full biometric data you currently have on your own citizens. Then we can maybe consider considering it.
- sebow 4y ago( Which it already has, just not officially. )
- coliveira 4y agoExactly, there is no question that this is already in some FAANG data center in one way or another, which is the same as in possession of the US gov. They just want to formalize the deal.
- golem14 4y agoMaybe have travellers sign away their biometric data as part of the visa waiver? Then the EU can claim not to be beholden to the US (the travellers are) and the US still gets data of travellers. The demand is for travellers only according the pdf, not for all EU citizens. This does not seem too onerous - people working in the US from EU already have to submit to much fingerprinting, AIDS tests and what not, and you don't hear much complaining about it.
- seydor 4y agoDon't they have facebook already?
- InTheArena 4y agoReading through the slides, it appears that what has been discussed is sharing signature and fingerprints for travel into the USA. There is a lot of weasel words, but it's probably worth nothing that the USA currently collects this information for foreign nationals coming into the USA (as the EU does for Americans traveling into the EU). This is being done in the context of a DB query as part of the e VISA application. It's worth noting that almost all of this is still the output of the 9/11, where US and Saudi systems did not communicate and resulted in known terrorists in Saudi Arabia being able to travel at will into the USA. I don't like biometrics, but the hyperbole needs to be tuned down a bit here.
- bombolo 4y agoYou mean USA won't misuse this data?
- EGreg 4y agoWe have had the Five Eyes and ECHELON for decades. Since before the Snowden revelations. How is this different? They don’t spy on their own citizens but they exchange info with the other spy agencies, so…
- IncRnd 4y agoIt's different in that it doesn't require misuse to get certain data about citizens.
- MonkeyClub 4y ago> They don’t spy on their own citizens They sure do; whatever gave you the impression they don’t?
- EGreg 4y agoTheir mandate doesnt allow it https://www.aclu.org/other/nsa-spying-americans-illegal https://www.aclu.org/other/nsa-spying-americans-illegal
- jscipione 4y agoThis is yet another violation of the forth Amendment right to privacy by the United States federal government as outlined by the Bill of Rights which applies to all people, not just US citizens and is self-evident and inalienable. Democracy worldwide is in absolute shambles as the United States government abandons the rule of law in favor of absolute dictatorship.
- AdrianB1 4y agoUnfortunately the First is the only Amendment that still exists to some extent, the others are long time broken in court, by federal and local government and police forces.
- 082349872349872 4y agoAt least this seems like a cross-superstate* request, which makes it less likely without reciprocity: my analysis Oceania : US + Airstrip One + ... (5 eyes, etc.) Eurasia : EU Eastasia : CN / RU+BY+RS (disunited ATM) * Was Orwell reading James Burnham (1941) to come up with his superstates?
- LarryMullins 4y agoWhether it's good local privacy laws in your country or a good privacy-respecting TOS from a company, both are basically worthless when a bigger entity comes barging into the picture. So your government collects biometric data but passes laws promising not to misuse it... you may very well find that those promises are worth less than dirt when a country with leverage over your own starts making demands that your government feels obliged or coerced to obey. Or you give lots of your personal data to a software company that promises privacy in their TOS. Great.. until that company gets bought out by the likes of Google or Facebook, then those promises evaporate and good luck doing anything about it. The solution is to never trust any promises of privacy, and don't hand over personal data to anybody unless it's taken from you at gunpoint. It doesn't matter what promises are given, because all promises can be broken with enough leverage. I recommend that Europeans petition their governments to delete such databases now, so that compliance with American demands simply won't be possible. Delete the databases now so your governments can't fold to pressure later.
- EGreg 4y ago[flagged]
- epolanski 4y agoWhy would we have to give two damns about American demands, I don't see that having any chance.
- hcks 4y agoYeah ahah no chance sure. What are these silly Americans thinking lol we are strong sovereign nations aren’t we ;)
- LarryMullins 4y agoEven if you're certain America today and into the indeterminate future has no leverage over your country, can't subvert your elections, bribe or blackmail your politicians, threaten sanctions or worse, then you still have to worry about American spies simply stealing that data. Such private data should never be collected in the first place. You may as well stack up gold bars in your home, in plain view of street-level windows. Such concentrations of data/wealth are asking for trouble. Get rid of it now and you won't have to worry about keeping it secure in the future, no matter what world events may unfold.
- cm2187 4y agoFor once, I would expect at least reciprocity. If the US suspends its visa free programme with Shenghen area countries (assuming ESTA isn't a visa, which it really is), I'd expect US travellers to cease to have visa-free access to Schenghen too.
- omgomgomgomg 4y agoI wonder if this will be in the french, german, italian newspapers and where. And if it gets tv time. In Bruxelles, this will be discussed and qhile they arent elected directly, they cannot pass any crap whatsoever there, there is always oposition on everything there.
- pelorat 4y agoEU is implementing their own version of ESTA in 2023. US citizens will have to register online and pay a fee to enter Europe starting sometime next year, and their biometrics will be collected.
- cm2187 4y agoBut that's reciprocity for ESTA, 15 years too late... And they are applying it to everyone, not just US citizens.
- rvba 4y agoSaddest is that in order to fight tax avoidance, when an European creates an account in an European bank you need to sign a separate statement that you are not an american citizen. I am not sure if they share data only of US citizens (or those with two citizenships), or all... but I also doubt that americans have to sign a document where they admit if they have a second citizenship in one of EU states. It feels very one sided.
- guitarbill 4y agoThat's solely down to the US and things like the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Not sure what you're arguing for? To make EU or EU state tax law as insane as the US tax law? The US is effectively able to bully other nations because of the US dollar and access to the banking system...
- rvba 4y agoI am arguing that this law should be apllied to both sides. Now it is one sided. If every EU citizen (when opening a bank account) has to sign a document that they are or arent an US citizen... then all americans should also sign a similar document where they confirm if they are or arent EU citizens. Now USA has a tool to track avoidance but EU doesnt. EU could just stop sharing this data with USA and demand reciprocation. Also I dont claim that this helps much, but it feels like EU citizens are second grade citizens in EU. I somehow doubt that americans have to sign a document that they arent an EU citizen when they open their bank account. Also lets dont act like EU doesnt have own ammunition. For starters it can stop sharing this information with US. Both blocks are friends, but come on. EU as a block is second on third in the world per GDP (why wikipedia doesnt show EU as whole block btw).
- quantum_state 4y agohope it should be clear by now Europe needs to stand on its own on all things …
- sfusato 4y ago2022 should have been a wake up call on that, but it seems our bureaucrats are still sleeping in Bruxelles.
- lstodd 4y agoOf course they are sleeping there, the question is - with whom, and how much coke is consumed per night. Gimme that biometric data... oh wait, it's all out there already. /s :~(
- frankfrankfrank 4y agoAre there any folks here to whom it is starting to dawn what is really going on here; a transatlantic prison planet where you can do nothing without your prison wardens, formerly known as politicians, bureaucrats, and generally awful people knowing more about you than you do and being able to terrorize and torment you if you oppose or inconvenience them?
- diffxx 4y agoI'm working through the stages of grief.
- MonkeyClub 4y agoThey don’t include revolution though.
- chadlavi 4y agoNot sure you know what a prison is frankfrankfrank
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PeterStuer 4y agoRogue state
- omgomgomgomg 4y agoOh dear, dear EU, please show some teeth on this matter, god help us if you do not. The EU is the only place on earth having kinda sensitive big data/privacy laws and enforcements thereof. I am familiar enough with data aggregators like lexis nexis, you do not want to be there or end up there without knowing or without having an option for removal of the entries. Do not share anything, this paper speaks of fingerprints, damn, even my god damned government and the government where I reside do not have my fingerprint. Some countries have a biometric passport, but usually, taking fingerprints is done on suspects of major crimes. Hell no, share nothing, for an entry to the us, there is paperwork that needs to be filled and of the us govt requests fingerprints then, that fine. But an information exchange of personal data like fatca? Thanks, but no thanks. Did europe ask the USA for their citizen data? Thought so. I know for sure the usa does not have access to some very important data from some european countries, and that is good the way it is.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- zajio1am 4y ago> Oh dear, dear EU, please show some teeth on this matter, god help us if you do not. > The EU is the only place on earth having kinda sensitive big data/privacy laws and enforcements thereof Only for corporations, not for governments. EU already has mandatory ID cards with biometric data (fingerprints), while AFAIK there is no such systematic collection of biometric data in US.
- omgomgomgomg 4y agoYou have the 5 eyes and NSA instead, whatever they do not have, apple, ms, aws and google will have. If we put all these things aside, AEoI exists and if a bank does due diligence on mortgages, loans and car leases, they collect plenty of stuff, if they have it, the government can have it. The EU mindlessly signed up for that, now the US gets all that insight, meanwhile, its almost impossible for americans to open a bank account abroad. The europeans do not share fingerprint data, cept for criminal interpol investigations. You are mistaken if ypu think your government is collecting less data than the euro governments. There are more issues with governance there, but I will not go the esclation route, my message is simply to not trust governments with your data. All on a need to know basis.
- chadlavi 4y agoas an American: this seems like an insane overreach
- hunglee2 4y agoHuge challenge for EU sovereignty. I'm guessing they are going to fold, as it is too important to keep US happy for fear of potential repercussions. Citizens of course, will have no say whatsoever
- seydor 4y agoIt's a tough geopolitical situation, and europe does not protect itself. The US already has access to european data through datacenters anyway, so it seems prudent for the western world police to cooperate as well.
- sitkack 4y agoThis is clearly BoR (Bill of Rights) territory, any 1st and 4th, 5th amendment protections should apply equally to everyone regardless of citizenship.
- anonym29 4y agoFuck the US government, full stop.
- krisoft 4y agoSo what is the concern here? The USA wants to check those who turn up at their border is who they say they are, and they also want to know if they are a good egg as far as the authorities know where they are from. Both of these sound iminently reasonable.
- Gasp0de 4y agoThe concern is they want to access biometric data in an automated fashion. The USA are known to be careless and/or evil when it comes to dealing with sensitive data. Why can't they just run someones fingerprint at the airport against their national databases and any international terrorist databases that might exist?
- krisoft 4y ago> The concern is they want to access biometric data in an automated fashion. Anything happening at the scales international travel flows at needs to be automated. > The USA are known to be careless and/or evil when it comes to dealing with sensitive data. What is the specific carelessness or evil you are worried about? > Why can't they just run someones fingerprint at the airport against their national databases I assume they do. But of course if someone has lived most of their life outside of the USA any criminal record they might have will be outside of the USA. > and any international terrorist databases that might exist? Why should they only be concerned about terrorism?
- Gasp0de 4y agoNot every step needs to be automated, no. What's wrong with the way it is right now? I hand over my passport at the airport, it has my fingerprints saved on it and they can check those against whatever databases they have. No need to access European databases. The US government has just lost databases with biometric data of millions of afghan people, together with the information whether they worked for the ISAF forces which puts those peoples life in immediate danger. When confronted with that, the US government did not indicate that they care about it.
- awesomegoat_com 4y agoYeah, and also please take your shoe off when boarding. Because you know, a family guy from Sweden is a threat to Uncle Sam Associates. Further, please prove you have survived certain medical procedures (Suddenly, border force can operate in violation of hipaa). Seriously, anyone who wants to justify current western procedures needs vacation. :-D
- Gasp0de 4y agoSo the same government that has just lost the biometric data of millions of afghan people (including afghan employees of ISAF military whose life is now in danger because of this) and merely shrugged when asked about it now wants access to my biometric data? No thanks.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- boomskats 4y agoIn the less-famous-than-they-ought-to-be words of Victoria Nuland, "Fuck the EU" [0] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGq_Xvzn_3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGq_Xvzn_3I
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- masswerk 4y agoI guess, this means the US are starting to register the place of residence of their citizens, in order to provide data in due reciprocity? /s
- Havoc 4y agoThe border stasi is no doubt excited about new toys to expand their security theater
- im3w1l 4y agoSlide 3 makes it sound like this only comes into play when you are enterring the US? That doesn't sound like a huge deal. Or am I missing something?
- m00dy 4y agohopefully zk proofs will fix this issue.
- archsurface 4y agoThe world is turning into a conspiraloon nightmare.
- libpcap 4y agoIt's ok, we're allies.
- cbsmith 4y agoA nice link to the video, but skip ahead to 17:20.
- krimpenrik 4y agoThe US should f*ck off
- s0sa 4y agoNah, I don’t think so. And what are you going to do about it?
- anonymous344 4y agoLook at the map of the earth and notice how isolated and far away USA is from the rest of us. Why do we let USA companies and military & gov. puppets do their destroying outside of USA? Why ? Europe and asia should ban USA and all of it's companies and specially the nato/military to enter or steal & destroy anything from outside usa. Why do we let them do this destruction ?
- data_maan 4y agoThe EU for example didn't want to risk enforcing reciprocity if the laws regarding the visa waiver program (law says that if the US doesn't enrol a EU country in the visa waiver program, the EU can start making it a hassle for US citizens as well to enter the EU, similar to what people from countries outside the visa waiver program have to go through). As someone once said: The EU has no balls (and was promptly critiqued on gender grounds which is the more important problem in the EU)
- s0sa 4y agoBecause might is right, and the USA is #1 ;)
- saiya-jin 4y agoThis is true but short-sighted approach IMHO. In age when China will be a close match to US in superpower-related terms (even if its less efficient they have sheer numbers on their side), US would be more than wise to make true proper long lasting friends rather then bullying everybody else to its whims. Or it might find itself more and more lonely and less relevant globally. It takes just few steps to make big dent in that - international payment systems, oil cartels, military bases in Africa, military equipment +-on par with west etc.
- genocidicbunny 4y agoThe somewhat tongue-in-cheek response is because the US annually spends more on their military than like the next 10 biggest spenders put together. You wanna dislodge them from that? Find some way to outspend them; Until you can do that, might as well be friendly with them.
- ls15 4y agoI think at this point, Europeans should be allowed to vote in U.S. elections.
- saiya-jin 4y agothis would lead to democrats always winning since on US spectrum most of EU is outright hardcore communism