One day you will regret your silence & apathy

Cloud surfing: US surveilance act ‘grave threat’ to EU sovereignty

An intelligence bill has put the frighteners on EU citizens as it allows the US access to their personal data stored in internet clouds like those used on Facebook and Google. The law is a ‘grave risk’ to the rights of EU citizens, says an EU report.

(*)The amendments to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama on Monday.

US lawmakers passed a five-year extension to 2008 amendments of the FISA at the end of December, allowing the US to keep tabs on phone calls and emails in and out of the country by US citizens.

However, a new EU study entitled ‘Fighting Cyber Crime and Protecting Privacy in the Cloud’ states the real threat lies in the US monitoring of information stored in US-owned public data clouds. The report writes that the legislation has “strong implications for EU fundamental rights” because it allows the US to lawfully extract any information from the clouds without any prior warning or consultation.

All data in the US clouds “becomes liable to mass-surveillance – for purposes of furthering the foreign affairs,” writes the document.

“FISAA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Ammendment Act] can be seen as a categorically much graver risk to EU data sovereignty than other laws hitherto considered by EU policy-makers,” notes the report.

In essence, at the behest of a secret government order US companies operating in the EU will be obliged to hand over data on European citizens. Non-American citizens dwelling outside the US are not subject to the search and seizure protections of the Fourth Amendment, and as such are easy picking for American snooping.

The report concludes that EU citizens should be warned that the information will be freely accessible to the US authorities and calls for EU citizens to be given the same rights as US citizens in American courts. Additionally, it recommends that privacy violations of data cloud information should constitute a cyber crime.

The report’s co-author, Casper Bowden, former chief privacy advisor to Microsoft Europe told news site slate.com that the lack of attention paid to the bill by EU authorities was “shocking.”

“It's like putting a mind control drug in the water supply, which only affects non-Americans,” said Bowden, adding that FISAA was “carte blanche for anything that furthers US foreign policy interests,” including the “continuous mass-surveillance of ordinary lawful democratic political activities.”


‘Warrantless eavesdropping’

The originally passing of the FISAA in 2008 set a precedent for conducting wiretapping of communication going out of the US without a warrant.


Many civil liberties groups in the US have argued that it goes against amendments in the US constitution that protect Americans from "unreasonable searches and seizures" without “probable cause.”


Tensions have been simmering for some time over the compromising of EU sovereignty by US legislation. Sophia in 't Veld, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs says that EU lawmakers are turning a “blind eye” to the issue, either because they do not fully understand it or “they are afraid to stand up to US authority.”


http://rt.com/news/fisa-spy-eu-cloud-619/

Just yet one more reason to ditch the festering and weak EU.

Leave the EU, refuse to comply with this, and give them the middle finger.

 

Don't worry Jack.. No need to cry that the sky is falling.. Those hundreds of millions of people they are collecting information about are all evil terrorists. If you've got nothing to hide, then you should be happy to give up your privacy and your rights.

 

why would anyone be happy to give up anything?

 

If you can't fight back as an individual donate to Anonymous- and/or your local Pirate Party.

http://pirate-party.us/

 

Stupidity?

Apathy?

Too much trust in authority?

 

Lol.

The reason the EU appear so weak here, is that they are complicit.

I despise the EU, and all that it stands for.

Reclaim our national identity again, dump the EU, and tell these US snoops to FO.

I would. What are they going to do about it? You have to have the nuts to stand up, at some point.

Otherwise it never ends, HFD.

 

Good luck my friend. People are sheep. Look at the fox hunting protests? They took you guns and now they want to ban hunting. Sounds like something from a Robin Hood story where they are hunted for taking the kings deer.

Don't worry Jack the US is full of loud mouthed cowards and we all (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and we just keep feeding the machine.

If we stand up alone we are called a nutter, if we get in a group and stand up we are put on the FBI watch list. If we actually take some sort of peacful action we can be jailed with no charges or trial until we expire.

 

(*)(*)(*)(*) if I know.. I'll never make sense of it. But there's hundreds of millions of them so it shouldn't be hard to find one to ask.

In fact, per the usual, there should be someone popping into this thread to play the trite "chicken little" card anytime now.

 

I'll personally just keep speaking freely, and not be intimidated.

If they want to silence me, they had better kill me.

And I am not scared of that either, since we all have to die somehow.

Who wants to be a living coward, too afraid to speak out?

That's no life, imo.

Well put btw, all of the above.

 

Jack perhaps people from both sides of the pond should just take one day and stop! No producing no buying no nothing. The people can take control and if we all stand nothing can be done.

 

Highest quality post I've seen in a long time.

 

Gee Jack, very Rambo-esque of you.

Since you are around and posting after more than 24,000 posts, I think it is safe to assume that you aren't worrying anyone who would take the trouble to murder you.

Keep it up, Fellas.

 

Ooooh, I loved "The Frighteners"

 

Jack's a decorated 2nd Looie in the 104th Internet Commando Battalion-Golden Keyboards Squad.

 

Usual sarcasm from you, trolling free as usual.

I do not live inside a movie.

It is not me who goes around saying that there is no reality, and that there is no real truth. That is you.

Which makes you a somewhat confusing person to understand, given that you then religously hold to other claims being real and true. You cannot have it both ways.

This is not about being Rambo.

This is about what everyone with a spine should be capable of, no, has a duty to do.

Learn about what is going on. Think. Tell others. Get them interested. Organise. Resist it.

If you wish to just lie back and take it, while being ignorant to that which is around you, go ahead.

 

No Jack is his own man and a free thinker. He is not stupid and brainwashed like most of the world.

 

Sadly followed by yet more trolling trash.

Another thread ruined, by the same person.

Time and again.

 

You see, Archer, what society likes, most of all..conformity.

The state esp like it. They cannot abide anyone that does not do so. All through time, I ask you, have the non conformists been the most accepted, and even the most popular of men? Of course not. On the contrary, for refusing to conform, they have often suffered, in many and some terrible ways.

It is only long after the fact, that we often accept the non comformists were historically correct. It is only then we are glad that they did not conform. Think of the ten most terrible social and human injustices that once existed, and were socially acceptable. Now think how bad it would be, if everyone had just got in line, and conformed.

There is an experiment, check it out, called the Asch experiment. All about social conformity. Those that use underhand methods to silence, censor, ridicule, undermine, or attack me, are doomed only to fail. With each passing time they do it, good and honest people can see what they are up to. I have faith in those people to see that, for themselves. Moreover, I have truth on my side, and I would sooner have that, than an entire corporate media that lied. There is no one that could ever make me conform. Nothing they could say. Nothing they could do. That is why I could never belong to a party, or revere a given leader, or any such thing, because, at some point, they are going to want you to toe the party line, and that means conform, and that = you being a half truther.

Thanks A,

Jack

 

Look out, Jack. The US is after you and now this anonymous thread ruiner. Is a pattern emerging?

Anyway, imagine US trying to interview a Scotsman. They need subtitles for Billy Connolly...

Mind you, there is the evidence of no common sense and no sense of humour whatsoever, coupled with no language skills. Remember the young Facebook couple who joked they were going to kill the US or some such and ended up doing something quite different from the tourist holiday they intended...

 

Some blokes once got arrested in London, for BOTP.

They were very drunk.

The police genuinely believed they were foreign.

They were from Newcastle.

 

Plus, Viv, doesn't this typify the Scottish psyche..

 

You're right...he deserves to be atleast a Major in the 104th. I'll talk to his CO, General Pat Dollard.

 

I would never want to be part of any army, or a politician.

 

...that would have me as a member...

 

It SHOULD be among the highest of honours, to be asked to represent the people of a nation.

Something only for the best of men (and women).

Instead of this..lies, corruption, theft of national wealth, non communication, career politicians, that can even lie us to war, and then walk away.

Why have we trained our tiny little brain to accept this mediocrity? We would not do so, in any other walk of life, so it is totally illogical.

Same with any armed forces that we have. It should be an honour, BUT, the nation and leaders should be respectful to them. And that does not mean words. It means not sending them to die for lies. Again, any negative standards that may have crept in, would be stamped out. A soldier should be professional, in and out of uniform, imo, and conduct himself with manners. In other words, there should be no place for thugs in the armed forces, not decrying all of our armed forces btw, just saying, you need to have standards.