Brussels, 13/06/2013 (Agence Europe) -European Commissioner for Human Rights, Viviane Reding, sent a strongly worded letter on 10 June, to the US justice minister Eric Holder, regarding the potential consequences of the NSA's PRISM surveillance programme for European citizens. She also asked him to come to Dublin this Friday with clear explanations with European and US representatives due to meet for a ministerial meeting. In her letter quoted by AFP on Wednesday, Viviane Reding reiterated her “serious concerns” about this programme and the scale of it. She said that such programmes and thelegal provisions authorising them could have “serious effects” on the fundamental rights of Europeans.
She called on Holder to “provide me with explanations and clarification regarding the PRISM and other US programmes involving data gathering and research, as well as the laws authorising such programmes”. The commissioner also reminded the US minister of several European requests that had, so far, remained unanswered, including the request that Europeans are equally protected by US laws, such as the Patriot Act. Currently, only US nationals can go to court in the event of abuses with regard to their personal data. The commissioner also pointed out that legal channels for data exchange were already in place for the two parties, such as extradition agreements and mutual assistance agreements in legal cases.
Viviane Reding's letter was courteous but firm and on several occasions she referred to the “seriousness of the situation” and the need for Holder to provide swift responses to her questions. The commissioner also spoke of trust: do these programmes exclusively target US residents or mainly foreign and European citizens; how far do they extend; are they limited to specific and individual cases; and on what criteria are they decided? She also asked: “What recourse do European citizens and companies affected by PRISM have?”
Reding did not hesitate either to make a connection between PRISM and the future free-trade agreement and pointed out that she was accountable to the European Parliament, which was very likely to “assess the transatlantic relationship in light of your answers”. (SP/transl.fl)