That’s the Way They Want It…

Yesterday, the European parliament approved a highly controversial international agreement allowing the transfer of personal data between the European Union and the United States. Anyone flying from an EU country to the United States should now be aware that his or her personal data will touch down in America before the plane even arrives: Name, address, credit card number, email address, number of bags, seat number, special meal requests and on and on. The data will remain stored in U.S. Homeland Security Agency computers for 15 years. What the data will be used for isn’t known. The German government offered no objection, because, well, that’s the way the U.S. wants it. So what? Is that any reason for the rabbit to stare transfixed at the rattlesnake and wait for the EU to possibly start its own snooping policy here as well?

It’s much the same with Germany’s data retention policy. The liberal minister of justice is still opposed to it, but her fanatical opponents, who support Federal Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, say she doesn’t stand a chance, because that’s the way the EU wants it. They point threateningly to possible penalties the EU could impose on a recalcitrant Germany. Again, so what? There are currently more than 80 European Union charges of German non-compliance pending. A quarter of them have been filed with the European Court of Human Rights, and to date not a single euro in fines has been levied.

No, neither the United States nor the European Union is out to destroy our civil rights, but they’re being used as cover by those who, afflicted by a blind data insanity, took such anti-data protection demands to Brussels in the first place.