US and EU scramble for new data-transfer deal

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/us-and-eu-scramble-for-new-data-transfer-deal/a-18806249

The invalidation of an agreement that allows personal data to flow between Europe and the US has prodded officials to search for a new solution. Facebook and NSA mass surveillance are at the center of the debate.

US and EU scramble for new data-transfer deal
Brian Beary
26.10.2015

"It has been an earthquake, 7.8 on the Richter scale," US Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill said of the European Court of Justice (ECJ)'s October 6 ruling that voided the agreement used for the past 15 years to deal with the big variances between EU and US data privacy rules. Brill, speaking at a recent European Institute breakfast in Washington's Cosmos Club, added, "It is kind of like the abortion and gun-control debates here wrapped up in one."

The Luxembourg-based ECJ sided with Austrian data privacy warrior and Facebook user Max Schrems, who sued the company in Ireland for moving his data from its Irish subsidiary to its California headquarters, where it can - allegedly - be scoured by the National Security Agency (NSA). The ECJ found that in light of the 2013 Snowden disclosures about programs like PRISM that give the NSA access to citizens' emails, the "Safe Harbor" agreement that the EU Commission negotiated with the US administration in 2000 does not adequately protect personal data, as it was supposed to. So, what next?

EU Ambassador to the US David O'Sullivan told DW: "We would all prefer to have a new Safe Harbor regime, and we understand the urgency of the issue." O'Sullivan is confident that a successor agreement, one which fully integrates the new ECJ case-law, will ensure Europeans' privacy rights are respected without needing to interrupt data flows.

Companies are nervous, mindful that if they make a wrong move they can be alternately fined for breaching privacy law, forced to interrupt personal data flows, or required to make costly changes to their corporate structure or governance. "There is going to be a lot of losers from this ruling," said Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington think-tank focused on the digital economy.

[bemildred]

1. They fear the internet, they do. Something they all agree on.

So I suppose just not trying to watch and save all that shit is out of the question. So they will go back and fake up some form of legality for it again. And again. And again.

I keep waiting for somebody to realize that if we don't connect anything important to the internet, then we won't need to worry about being attacked on the internet. The internet can only do what we allow it to do. But nooo. Connect every damn thing in the country that anybody gives a crap about to the internet, and then spend boatloads of money in the futile attempt to protect it.