EU Parliament Approves Data Sharing Deal With U.S.

The European Parliament approved a deal with the United States that would allow the U.S. to collect data from airlines about European passengers entering the U.S. and retain it for 15 years (with a promise that the names will be redacted after six months, but presumably still accessible to make any potential criminal investigation possible).

The deal passed 409-226, a slimmer margin than such measures that come before the U.S. Congress get, when they do get to Congress. Increasingly, the government relies on secret interpretations of laws like the PATRIOT Act, and the protections of the Privacy Act of 1974 have broken down in the digital age.

Meanwhile, European opposition to the measure was articulated by Sophie In't Veld, a member of Parliament with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats:

[Despite years of negotiation the agreement] still falls short of the high standards of data privacy and legal protection that our citizens expect. In politics we make compromises but some things are not negotiable such as fundamental rights and respect for EU law. Apparently the European Parliament believes Transatlantic relations are more important than the fundamental rights of EU citizens

The European Union has some bizarre ideas about what constitutes fundamental rights, but it's not the first time a foreign government's shown more reticence about the U.S. government's disregard for a right to privacy increasingly rare at home.