7 ms·

European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

252 points by chrbutler 13y ago

Mordor 13y ago
Ultimately the only language the US government understands is the massive fines and restrictions about to be levied against its corporations. Should Apple be operating in Europe for example? Would it be possible to levy a fine for each iPhone sold? Perhaps the tax authorities could take a different view on their profits...
- ig1 13y ago
  In theory if someone knew they were subject to data being collected about them they could bring a law-suit against the companies involved for breaching data protection and privacy legislation. The immunity that companies get from co-operating with the US government only covers them in the US, not in other countries. But in practice the only time people know this information is being collected on them is when a company (i.e Twitter) refuses to comply with such an order.
- lignuist 13y ago
  If not providing the right browsers with a OS is a reason to enforce huge fines, then large scale espionage is a reason for much higher fines. Probably enough to fix the Euro crisis...
- nullc 13y ago
  Perhaps not a good mix with all those offshore-for-tax-reasons assets!
sentenza 13y ago
As a someone from Europe (Germany), I can say that this whole affair is definitely a public relations disaster for the US over here. In the beginning, I was really unsure if regular people who are not members of the tech community would become aware of this or if it was perceived as to much of a niche topic. Well, I guess that question has been answered: Yesterday tagesschau[1], the biggest and most trusted evening television news show carried a short segment about it. Today I read that Merkel herself wants to bring this up at her next meeting with Obama. [1] http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts42578.html http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts42578.html at about 7:30
- danmaz74 13y ago
  It will be interesting to see the real effects though. How long will people remember about this? How much will it affect their actual choices? The US "brand" overcame so many scandals, I'm not sure this one will be different.
  - colin_jack 13y ago
    In terms of the public it will probably be forgotten quickly, politicians probably wont be so forgiving.
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      It might be forgotten but I'm sure it will add to the increasingly negative view the rest of the world has of America. It seemed less negative once the Bush administration ended but things like this could restart the negative opinion.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    You bring up an interesting point. I would describe the effect of revelations of this kind on people in Germany as a noticeable jump in one direction on a sentiment continuum, if that makes any sense. The generation of currently 25 to 40 year olds here have grown up in an extremely US-influenced cultural environment. Imagine that there is this magically interesting and quite progressive place on earth and they broadcast from there on all TV channels all the time. That's what it was like to grow up in the 90s in Germany. Having grown up with a generally positive view of the US, the Iraq war was a decisive turning point for many people of that (i.e., my) generation. By the time Colin Powell presented his case before the UN, many Germans started to feel betrayed, because it seemed so obvious that an invasion was not the right thing to do (the GOOD GUY became a mere mortal). Older people that were familiar with the political games of the cold war might not have been surprised, but the young people definitely were. Since then for many Germans, the attitude towards the US is quite ambivalent. It is possible that this in some situations leads to unfair highlighting of wrongdoing on part of the US, but I'd say that by and large the effect is primarily that there is now interest in good news and bad news about the US. Add to that, that many Germans feel extremely uneasy about intelligence gathering in general (think STASI), and you have a reason to assume that, at least in Germany, this thing will linger in the hearts and minds for a while. It has to be noted, however, that this also means that the reaction in Germany cannot be generalized to the rest of Europe.
mbesto 13y ago
It'll be interesting to see what happens to those global (US-based) cloud providers whose business strategy of poor profit margins in exchange for reduced costs of sale fair after this PR catastrophe. When it comes to the economics of this, the US is going to lose a huge amount of business due to this and potentially could in theory cause several businesses to go bankrupt. Since, government's are naturally fiscally motivated, I suspect the real way for Americans to complain is "with their wallets". In other words there is definitely an argument to be had for "We can't compete in the world's technology game because they don't trust our security. We can no longer innovate because of the government's haphazardness. Fix this US government." At least then when another terrorist attack happens in the US, the government can say "Well, you wanted your economics, so we gave it to you, but now you lack security. Pick one or the other." This is going to be great for EU-based providers. They've been struggling for awhile to compete with Amazon, Rackspace, etc. I'd bet my money today on private, country-based cloud providers in EU. It will be nearly impossible for the US to dig itself out of this one.
- MisterWebz 13y ago
  It seems the EU has better privacy laws, but it would be foolish to think that there isn't any surveillance and spying being done here.
  - jsonne 13y ago
    They don't in the slightest. Check out Sweden's FRA laws. They're even more invasive than PRISM.
    - MisterWebz 13y ago
      In school I've been taught that companies (and government entities?) are not allowed to keep your private information stored unless they have a valid reason for keeping it, and if they do, then you're allowed to know what they're storing and have the right to ask them to delete the data. I remember reading an article that was posted here on HN about someone demanding Facebook to reveal the personal information they were storing of him, because IIRC, one of Facebook's servers is located in Europe, so they had to abide by EU's privacy laws. He eventually got a CD containing his personal info. It contained very limited data and not as much as I believe that they would have collected, but it shows that companies in Europe have to follow these laws.
jsonne 13y ago
Ironic as one of their member states (Sweden) has a potentially even more wide reaching program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law
- tripa 13y ago
  AFAIK, Sweden doesn't host gmail or facebook servers.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    Facebook does have servers in Sweden: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/31/facebook_swedish_data_centre_privacy_law/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/31/facebook_swedish_dat...
  - mpyne 13y ago
    So strong civil liberties are only necessary in nations that have large cloud-based services? There goes that double-standard again... :)
- kalms 13y ago
  More info here (entire Sca): http://balder.org/articles/hatespeech/Big-Brother-Sweden-Denmark-Laws-Comparison-FRA-Law.php http://balder.org/articles/hatespeech/Big-Brother-Sweden-Den...
throwit1979 13y ago
With the news out that UK and Dutch law enforcement have been fed data from PRISM, I really don't think anyone should take this feigned outrage seriously.
- jkn 13y ago
  Members of the European parliament are elected directly by the people, and their mandate is only for work in the European parliament. Most of them have no insider knowledge of what happens in the ministries of individual countries. To give some numbers: according to Wikipedia[1], about a third of MEPs have previously held positions in country parliaments, and about 10% in country ministries. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_the_European_Parliament#Members.27_experience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_the_European_Parliame...
Zenst 13y ago
AS somebody living in the EU I'm more shocked the EU Par-lament(sic) are thinking this is new and ignoreing previous indications becasue not enough people went rabble rabble. WIth that the Press has jumped on this, forcing the consumer to be more up in arms as and fueling this to the extent that the EU mob have to play knee jerk reaction and supprise. Seriously wonder if we should sack the politicians in the EU and just replace them with jornalists, as they seem to be more on the pulse of whats going on and have more control of the people. But as no EU contry can control it's TAX then who or what gets at leaked data is no supprise. Been enough details and facts leak out about this being in place before this PRISIM leak, still will only hurst USA based cloud providers and that is the only crux of it.
runn1ng 13y ago
They are probably angry that European Union doesn't have such a program, too.

252 points by chrbutler 13y ago

Ultimately the only language the US government understands is the massive fines and restrictions about to be levied against its corporations. Should Apple be operating in Europe for example? Would it be possible to levy a fine for each iPhone sold? Perhaps the tax authorities could take a different view on their profits...

ig1 13y ago
In theory if someone knew they were subject to data being collected about them they could bring a law-suit against the companies involved for breaching data protection and privacy legislation. The immunity that companies get from co-operating with the US government only covers them in the US, not in other countries. But in practice the only time people know this information is being collected on them is when a company (i.e Twitter) refuses to comply with such an order.
lignuist 13y ago
If not providing the right browsers with a OS is a reason to enforce huge fines, then large scale espionage is a reason for much higher fines. Probably enough to fix the Euro crisis...
nullc 13y ago
Perhaps not a good mix with all those offshore-for-tax-reasons assets!

sentenza 13y ago

As a someone from Europe (Germany), I can say that this whole affair is definitely a public relations disaster for the US over here. In the beginning, I was really unsure if regular people who are not members of the tech community would become aware of this or if it was perceived as to much of a niche topic. Well, I guess that question has been answered: Yesterday tagesschau[1], the biggest and most trusted evening television news show carried a short segment about it. Today I read that Merkel herself wants to bring this up at her next meeting with Obama. [1] http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts42578.html http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts42578.html at about 7:30

danmaz74 13y ago
It will be interesting to see the real effects though. How long will people remember about this? How much will it affect their actual choices? The US "brand" overcame so many scandals, I'm not sure this one will be different.
- colin_jack 13y ago
  In terms of the public it will probably be forgotten quickly, politicians probably wont be so forgiving.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    It might be forgotten but I'm sure it will add to the increasingly negative view the rest of the world has of America. It seemed less negative once the Bush administration ended but things like this could restart the negative opinion.
- sentenza 13y ago
  You bring up an interesting point. I would describe the effect of revelations of this kind on people in Germany as a noticeable jump in one direction on a sentiment continuum, if that makes any sense. The generation of currently 25 to 40 year olds here have grown up in an extremely US-influenced cultural environment. Imagine that there is this magically interesting and quite progressive place on earth and they broadcast from there on all TV channels all the time. That's what it was like to grow up in the 90s in Germany. Having grown up with a generally positive view of the US, the Iraq war was a decisive turning point for many people of that (i.e., my) generation. By the time Colin Powell presented his case before the UN, many Germans started to feel betrayed, because it seemed so obvious that an invasion was not the right thing to do (the GOOD GUY became a mere mortal). Older people that were familiar with the political games of the cold war might not have been surprised, but the young people definitely were. Since then for many Germans, the attitude towards the US is quite ambivalent. It is possible that this in some situations leads to unfair highlighting of wrongdoing on part of the US, but I'd say that by and large the effect is primarily that there is now interest in good news and bad news about the US. Add to that, that many Germans feel extremely uneasy about intelligence gathering in general (think STASI), and you have a reason to assume that, at least in Germany, this thing will linger in the hearts and minds for a while. It has to be noted, however, that this also means that the reaction in Germany cannot be generalized to the rest of Europe.

mbesto 13y ago

It'll be interesting to see what happens to those global (US-based) cloud providers whose business strategy of poor profit margins in exchange for reduced costs of sale fair after this PR catastrophe. When it comes to the economics of this, the US is going to lose a huge amount of business due to this and potentially could in theory cause several businesses to go bankrupt. Since, government's are naturally fiscally motivated, I suspect the real way for Americans to complain is "with their wallets". In other words there is definitely an argument to be had for "We can't compete in the world's technology game because they don't trust our security. We can no longer innovate because of the government's haphazardness. Fix this US government." At least then when another terrorist attack happens in the US, the government can say "Well, you wanted your economics, so we gave it to you, but now you lack security. Pick one or the other." This is going to be great for EU-based providers. They've been struggling for awhile to compete with Amazon, Rackspace, etc. I'd bet my money today on private, country-based cloud providers in EU. It will be nearly impossible for the US to dig itself out of this one.

MisterWebz 13y ago
It seems the EU has better privacy laws, but it would be foolish to think that there isn't any surveillance and spying being done here.
- jsonne 13y ago
  They don't in the slightest. Check out Sweden's FRA laws. They're even more invasive than PRISM.
  - MisterWebz 13y ago
    In school I've been taught that companies (and government entities?) are not allowed to keep your private information stored unless they have a valid reason for keeping it, and if they do, then you're allowed to know what they're storing and have the right to ask them to delete the data. I remember reading an article that was posted here on HN about someone demanding Facebook to reveal the personal information they were storing of him, because IIRC, one of Facebook's servers is located in Europe, so they had to abide by EU's privacy laws. He eventually got a CD containing his personal info. It contained very limited data and not as much as I believe that they would have collected, but it shows that companies in Europe have to follow these laws.

jsonne 13y ago

Ironic as one of their member states (Sweden) has a potentially even more wide reaching program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law

tripa 13y ago
AFAIK, Sweden doesn't host gmail or facebook servers.
- anon1385 13y ago
  Facebook does have servers in Sweden: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/31/facebook_swedish_data_centre_privacy_law/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/31/facebook_swedish_dat...
- mpyne 13y ago
  So strong civil liberties are only necessary in nations that have large cloud-based services? There goes that double-standard again... :)
kalms 13y ago
More info here (entire Sca): http://balder.org/articles/hatespeech/Big-Brother-Sweden-Denmark-Laws-Comparison-FRA-Law.php http://balder.org/articles/hatespeech/Big-Brother-Sweden-Den...

throwit1979 13y ago

With the news out that UK and Dutch law enforcement have been fed data from PRISM, I really don't think anyone should take this feigned outrage seriously.

jkn 13y ago
Members of the European parliament are elected directly by the people, and their mandate is only for work in the European parliament. Most of them have no insider knowledge of what happens in the ministries of individual countries. To give some numbers: according to Wikipedia[1], about a third of MEPs have previously held positions in country parliaments, and about 10% in country ministries. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_the_European_Parliament#Members.27_experience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_the_European_Parliame...

Zenst 13y ago

AS somebody living in the EU I'm more shocked the EU Par-lament(sic) are thinking this is new and ignoreing previous indications becasue not enough people went rabble rabble. WIth that the Press has jumped on this, forcing the consumer to be more up in arms as and fueling this to the extent that the EU mob have to play knee jerk reaction and supprise. Seriously wonder if we should sack the politicians in the EU and just replace them with jornalists, as they seem to be more on the pulse of whats going on and have more control of the people. But as no EU contry can control it's TAX then who or what gets at leaked data is no supprise. Been enough details and facts leak out about this being in place before this PRISIM leak, still will only hurst USA based cloud providers and that is the only crux of it.

runn1ng 13y ago

They are probably angry that European Union doesn't have such a program, too.