[Skip to comment(s)]
from the they-still-know-everything-about-you dept.
European and US legislators have hammered out a last-minute deal to allow data flows across the Atlantic to continue without breaking the law. Under the terms of the new deal, which has yet to be ratified by EU members, the US will give an annual written commitment that it won't indulge in mass surveillance of EU citizens, and this will be audited by both sides once a year.
US companies wishing to import EU citizens' data must give "robust obligations on how personal data is processed," and comply to the same standards as European data protection laws. If EU citizens want to complain about how their data is being used, companies must respond within a deadline and at no cost to the complainant.
The so-called Privacy Shield deal replaces the Safe Harbor agreement that stood for more than 15 years before being struck down by a court in October. It's the result of three months of frantic and sometimes fraught negotiations between the two trade blocks, with tech firms in both zones pushing hard for a deal.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/safe_harbor_replaced_with_privacy_shield/
[Press Release]: EU Commission and United States agree on new framework for transatlantic data flows: EU-US Privacy Shield
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday February 04 2016, @02:58AM
If you want your privacy raped now you'll have to move to the US.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:19AM
No, the US will still violate your privacy, only it will be legal this time because the walls separating US and EU data will ensure that US-persons (on whom it would be illegal under US law for the NSA to spy) are not accidentally mixed into the data of EU persons (on whom it is perfectly legal for the NSA to spy). At the same time, the BND, DGSE, GHCQ, and got knows how many other EU organizations will be competing to read your e-mails as well, because they are all doing the exact same thing as the NSA but with fewer resources and less creativity. The actions of the NSA will be against EU law, and the NSA will not care, because it is not part of the EU. The actions of the BND, DGSE, GHCQ, et al. will also be against EU law, and they also will not care, but at some point and for about a week a politician somewhere between Berlin and Brussels will feel some tinge of embarrassment because of it (the UK has long lost any sense of shame). Further, the Russians and Chinese will be reading your e-mails as well as the EU intelligence agencies' reports about your e-mails. So, rest assured that you will still be able to have your privacy thoroughly gangbanged while remaining in Europe: you'll just feel safer while it happens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @05:27AM
(on whom it would be illegal under US law for the NSA to spy)
That doesn't seem to have stopped them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @09:14PM
I've heard that the US shares intelligence with Russia [lrb.co.uk] but I didn't know Europe was sharing with Russia and China. Where did you hear about that?
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday February 05 2016, @01:00PM
You kind of should hear about it everywhere, even if all you read is western MSM drivel you'll still have it pointed out to you rather directly from time to time in various news. What do you think "international cooperation" is whenever it's anything security related? It's the exchange of information at the very least if not also resources like funding, technology, even manpower, weapons, and the use of such.
Don't worry about the past (not so much "skeletons in every closet" as multiple vast graveyards in all of them) but take it as a challenge for the future, something to look out for and pay more attention to if you don't mind learning that humans are ...untrustworthy (and that's a statement that is nearly all sugar) even when or if they're convinced they're doing something good (you might not notice any difference to bad even if there is one). Same thing goes for politics which can be amusingly obvious like a sudden manufactured stink about private emails among Republican US politicians a decade ago. Think of it as an attempt to establish a "prior art" defense or as a young kid complaining that she didn't start it and that "they did it too". Truth seldom matters and often isn't even relevant (and just to in "fairness" (bullshit) kick in a "different" direction those Bush administrations said it out loud: it's all about controlling the narrative, where reality is made).
Learn about manipulation and propaganda, there is no lack of available sources on the topics, more than I'll ever manage to read. And once in a while someone has had enough and just says something out loud on record like this [breitbart.com]. Don't believe just because of that (it can always be misdirection, propaganda, manipulation, for example in this case it could conceivably be an attempt to have people let off some steam by having their opinion being corroborated), only believe it when it is true from your own experience (and by the way it's not just a German thing, more or less everyone is doing the same if they have something to lose). It is the worst in what used to be called "the free world", feel free to analyze some WH or DoD press briefing; what are they saying, why, how, which words should be unnecessary, what justifications are given and do you actually get what they say they base their stance on, and what if anything makes sense and how could it not make sense?
So yes everyone shares with everyone else (all states love surveillance of "their" people, simple as that. You don't still think surveillance has anything to do with terrorism do you?) and for the most part everyone works with everyone as well but the visibility depends primarily on political expediency and whatever games of both public and private manipulation are being played. The sharing can be both genuine and deliberately wrong, just as it is within agencies (have you heard the recent news of the CIA deliberately misinforming itself in order to control information flows and limit/contain information? And of course everyone here should be well aware of how the NSA lied to Congress multiple times and got away with it and still do).
There's not really any specific place to read about any of it or some singular piece of documentation, more like millions of pieces of documentation and most of them dead boring about various bureaucratic cooperation etc.
Still many won't have a clue unless they pay some actual attention (most people do not pay the slightest attention even if a few think they do, at least that's my opinion, they'll just choose a "reality" or accept a given one that they want to be true and stick to that) over significant periods of time and maybe have some direct personal experience and knowledge. There are interconnections everywhere. No one can be expected to know anything unless they engage their brains and many desperately wish not to on a number of topics aka "willful blindness", not even (or perhaps especially when) thinking makes you realize you are to blame in your own small but not totally insignificant way.
One contentious "recent" (it's nothing new, only the scale of it is new) example is how the so-called "left"/"elite" stooges are falling over themselves to defend things like rape, child molestation/mutilation, child marriage (did you catch the recent UNICEF defense of child marriage? No?) and so on whenever they feel like they would be "racist" not to. There are people on the left who speak up against it but in general they fucking hell don't because the loudest message is "don't rock the boat" on such topics. Everyone else realizes that it makes them accomplices.
Anyway an easy place to start is to look at and read as much as you can find about international police cooperation and international cooperation against terrorism as well as not only close political alliances but the more diffuse ones, historical alliances and connections. Then there's military cooperation including between "enemies" in the form of agreements like for example the recently violated Open Skies agreement (Turkey (and likely the Saudis too; it's not like they'll settle with grabbing Yemen) really wants the US and Russia to start fighting and the US is dumb enough that it actually might work).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2016, @04:51PM
Sharing? Russia and China are stealing the info. Who do you think makes Europe's routers?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 04 2016, @04:11AM
If you want your privacy raped now you'll have to move to the US.
You've hit the nail on the head.
the US will give an annual written commitment that it won't indulge in mass surveillance of EU citizens, and this will be audited by both sides once a year.
So, suddenly EU citizens have more protection than US citizens, from a government that is supposed to be protecting the US !! Second class citizen in my own country.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @04:51AM
the US will give an annual written commitment that it won't indulge in mass surveillance of EU citizens, and this will be audited by both sides once a year.
So, suddenly EU citizens have more protection than US citizens, from a government that is supposed to be protecting the US !! Second class citizen in my own country.
The US will lie to the EU citizens. The US will have nothing about which to lie to its own citizens. Thus, the US will lie less to its own citizens. I don't know where you get the crazy notion of "protection" or what that has to do with what class of citizen you are: there is no protection here, just some paper-shuffling to appease the EU masses.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:42PM
Misusing the word "rape" is so five-years-ago.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday February 04 2016, @07:26PM
Misusing the word "rape" is so five-years-ago.
What? Is the tense wrong?
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday February 06 2016, @01:21AM
"audited" I don't think the summary is using this word correctly. There is ZERO chance of the DHS, NSA, FBI, ATF, or any other agency that is actually doing mass surveillance permitting an audit of whether or not they have data from EU citizens gathered from US companies.
An audit is NOT some guy showing up at the front door of the FBI, getting to talk to the head of PR and asking "is the FBI doing mass surveillance of EU citizens? Remember, your gov't agreed to let us audit you" "Oh, yes, I have that agreement right here. The answer to your question is 'No'. That is extent of the audit you are permitted to perform here."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:14AM
i even made dolphin noises during sex.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gravis on Thursday February 04 2016, @05:33AM
the US will give an annual written commitment that it won't indulge in mass surveillance of EU citizens
and they believed that?! (≧∇≦)/
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @06:43AM
I do. I also believe that they will not enter my country, copy business content to hard drives then take said drives directly back to their country bypassing due process, and they definitely will not seek for me to be jailed and rendered to their country to defend against charges for crimes that only exist in their country. Never. Won't megahappen ever.
(Score: 1) by linkdude64 on Thursday February 04 2016, @08:28AM
Upvoted, mostly for the emoji.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @02:46PM
Of course they did. Why should the US not write such a commitment?
Now if you ask whether the US will actually act according to that commitment, that's another question …
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:28PM
words words words PEACE OUT BITCHES WE DO WHAT WE WANT
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tonyPick on Thursday February 04 2016, @07:04AM
My first thought, and from TFA:
So the NSA can still collect the data, machine process it, give automatically flagged items to review, and still claim not to have done "mass surveillance" since they didn't have an analyst review all of at it? In other words - nothing changes?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @02:55PM
Hmmm … maybe those standards should also be applied to copyright. "No, our server full of movie files doesn't violate copyright. You see, we only store copies of the movies, we don't watch them!" :-)