Topic awaiting preservation: All EU airline data available to US agencies

I can´t tell you how pissed I am.

Our great European Union got a request from the US customs office to make a law that would give them acces to all passenger data of flights to the US - for the sake of terrorism-prevention.
Not only did they respond "Yes Sir", but they also agreed with the US proposal that, to save the airlines the cost of sorting out the relevant data, it should just be made compulsory for the airlines to give the US customs office UNRESTRICTED PERMANENT ACCES to their COMPLETE DATABASE.
This of course includes the personal and travel data of anyone who took any flight (to teh US or not) in the last 5-10 years. And of course this information is not restricted for use by the US customs, no, it was already decided that all US security agencies would get acces, too.

Can anyone imagine the reaction from the US administration if the EU would request the same thing from them?

Whoah! That means that any German who flies to America will have every bit of information about his/her existence transmitted...hmmm....

But why are you getting upset about this...you live in Germany...and the German Government already knows everything about you...it's required by law. Ok, maybe this is against the laws of Datenschutz, but really...do you think that the German agencies really take the laws seriously? I sincerely doubt it...only in 'official' things, would such be followed...'inofficially', any agency can get your personal data...


WebShaman

First thing, this not only applies to anyone flying to the US (which would to some extent be acceptable, they could say, no data no visa, that´s their good right). The way it is implemented means they can even acces the data of people who never fly to the states.

Second - I know that the german agencies already have acces to any data they want, after 9/11 they got even more rights than they had before. I´d very much like my privacy intact. Seems like it´s not meant to be. But I´d rather have it invaded by my own government than by someone else´s...

With the stance the current US administration has taken towards germany and the planned worldwide Pax Americana and this funny project going by the name of Total Information Awareness (worldwide data mining, which was recently decided to exclude US citizens), not to mention the CIA´s documented history of business espionage in germany... I ask myself: What will be next?

Well, it leads to you becoming an 'American'...kinda like Puerto Rico...or Haiti...

But seriously...where does that all lead? That's a question that I think many have been asking lately...I would say, it looks like what you are explaining, is a part of the 'War on Terror'...which, combined with the 'Pax Americana', could lead to total American domination...on a global scale.

Well, we will see...

let the world become a toletarian state!
It's easier to circumvent them anyhow, if everyone one does what he's told, and not what he's being paid for ;-).


Completly off topic:
Germany's not that big. I'm currently living close to Frankfurt (not that close, you madman with the nuke. Yes, you, right there in the righthand corner!).
So where are the two of you located, MW and WebShaman?

So long,

Tyberius Prime

TP: I can't speak for MW but WS is on the GN locator map (north and a little bit west of you):
http://development.gurusnetwork.com/locator/141/

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

I am currently supposed to be studying in Freiburg.

that map's missing a scale!

I judge WS to be around Hamburg, which would 'only' be 500 km... nothing for the us, quite a bit for good'ol europe...

I don't like it but it is just the same as the new telecom guides who are (quietly) put in business.
It means that all phone traffic (this includes all internet data you generate)data should be stored in logs for 5 years or more. In this country all the isp's should give the state acces to a tap installation at any given time the OM decides to.
To combine the different data they need the approval from the justice minister but not the parliament like in the old law.

The bad thing is this all happens 'to protect our freedom'

I personally think the whole 9/11 thing is terribly abused by the savety&security departments from all the 'free western countries'. There are really no other organizations who benefited more from that dark day.

Sometimes i am even thinking of leaving my country for an neutral one like swiss or sweden. But no one is allowed to stay in swiss for long. If you got a job i is a couple off years if not only a few months max. I don't know about sweden but i like some higher temperatures.

"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.

I kind of had to laugh a bit about this because I assume that the government already has access to all our information whether they admit it or not. And if the government doesn't then I figure someone else does.

But this brings up the very dangerous tight rope we are walking between just how much freedom is to be compromised in order to effectively fight a war and protect citizens. I am not opposed to some restricted freedom during time of war and so far the US has a good track record for restoring civil liberties back to the pre-war state after the war is over. But we have to be constantly keeping an eye on this issue or it could seriously be abused.

Bugs: You may be right about the US restoring the freedom, but you and i don't how the EU handles this stuff.
And the both laws are very strict. Also i don't think off the Union as if it was in war. But that might be another discusion. Anway as far the telecom guide it is meant to be a law for peace time.

The dilemma is like this:
'How much from the civilian's freedom and privacy may be violated to protect the civilian's freedom and privacy?'
If only the civilians are protected and they are not free and have no privacy they are actually repressed and thus not protected at all.

I don't like that my governement can see all y movements but i fear the day that someone will abuse it.
So i even more dislike that an other country can see a lot of me.

"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.