U.S. pushing Europe for flight data deal-by Colleen Barry
The United States is hoping to make progress this weekend on a new agreement with European countries to share airline passenger data for terrorism investigations, a U.S. official said Friday.The two sides disagree on how long U.S. authorities can use the data, when it should be destroyed and which agencies should have access to the information. The United States also wants the authority to pull data directly from airline computers, but European countries insist airlines must transmit the information to U.S. authorities.
European governments are worried about violating their strict privacy laws - a legacy in some countries of overcoming dictatorships.
The current deal allows the Customs and Border Protection agency to disclose passenger data to other U.S. law enforcement agencies for anti-terror investigations "if those agencies have protection standards comparable to those of the EU" (which is nearly impossible to figure out).
Note EU-Digest:"The present agreement between the US and the EU which already contains numerous European concessions should remain in force. The EU should screen its own citizens traveling to the US and stop those it considers potential threats to society. The US, however, must not be allowed to obtain sovereign European computer data on its own accord (which it is probably already doing anyway). In the meantime it would be recommended that this Privacy Law issue be discussed once again in the European parliament and dumped for good. For the time being European tourists probably are better served to avoid visiting the US."
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