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Privacy? You can't be trusted with privacy!


Take a look at the below article originally posted by Candy on how the US demanded and got the right to read credit card transactions and spy on e-mail accounts of European visitors to the US, and realize how badly Brussels bargained. See, if the US threatens to ban European visitors if Brussels won't cave on this, as Brussels you say "go ahead". Game it through in your mind - the ban wouldn't stand.

Which, of course, means that Brussels is onside with these privacy violations - if they had a problem with them, they could have stopped them cold. The fact is that elites, globally, do not believe in privacy. The UK has been described, by its own privacy comissioner, as a "surveillance state" because of the intrusion of surveillance into everyday life (and Blair, of course, wants to gather DNA samples of every Briton and has been using the police to backdoor the policy by having them take samples from everyone they arrest for anything, even if they are never convicted.)

Air passengers face having credit card transactions and email messages inspected by the American authorities

Britons flying to America could have their credit card and email accounts inspected by the United States authorities following a deal struck by Brussels and Washington.

By using a credit card to book a flight, passengers face having other transactions on the card inspected by the American authorities. Providing an email address to an airline could also lead to scrutiny of other messages sent or received on that account.

The extent of the demands were disclosed in "undertakings" given by the US Department of Homeland Security to the European Union and published by the Department for Transport after a Freedom of Information request.

About four million Britons travel to America each year and the released document shows that the US has demanded access to far more data than previously realised.

Not only will such material be available when combating terrorism but the Americans have asserted the right to the same information when dealing with other serious crimes.


Ian Welsh January 1, 2007 - 7:36pm
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Oh, they believe in privacy

Oh, they believe in privacy all right. But only for themselves--publish their private financial data and see how fast the tune changes. The European elites think that the US elites will cover for them. Not real likely when you get down to it.

randolph January 2, 2007 - 1:28am
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No Welcome from Uncle Sam

Notebook
By Cristina Odone
January 2
The Independent UK

'We are all American now." NOT, as they say. Since Europe's heartfelt response to the events of September 11, the Bush Administration has squandered our goodwill. Bungles in Iraq and gas-guzzling habits are bad enough. We have also witnessed George Bush's casual attitude to extradition: when he showed not the slightest concern over the fate of the NatWest Three, or the political pressure his intractable position put on Tony Blair, or the rage of their Middle England supporters, Bush dealt a body blow to the Special Relationship.

Once again thumbing its nose at old allies, America now demands a licence to snoop on Britons and other Europeans. Buy your plane ticket over the internet, and you risk having Uncle Sam examine your other credit-card purchases; he can also read all the messages you sent and received on the email address you used. Oh, and know whether you ordered a vegetarian or kosher airline meal. You can almost hear the catchy new advertising jingle: Fly to America, and leave your civil rights behind.

Crossing the Atlantic is already an ordeal. I speak as someone who regularly flies to Washington DC, where my father has been seriously ill. My repeated entries, with my toddler (now a dab hand at seat-belt fastening, ear decompressing and joining the dots in the booklet in the children's freebie bag), have grown ever more exhausting and humiliating.

advertisementThere is the milk-bottle test (Mummy holds her nose as she glugs Baby's milk to prove it's not toxic or explosive); the shoe removal (embarrassing exposure of hole in sock); the frisking (passenger behind you cracks lewd jokes); the thumb-printing ("Again!" barks the immigration officer. "Your thumb is too sweaty to be legible!"); the inquisition (often in heavily accented English); and then, just as you think you're clearing Customs, the random baggage search (bras, knickers and a medley of Baby Gap left in a jumble to rearrange). All this plus jet lag, queues and delays: feeling unwelcome, and not a little intimidated, you want to sue the Statue of Liberty for misrepresentation.
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"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." -
Anais Nin

adrena January 2, 2007 - 4:03am
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