Brussels, 13/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - The political groups at the European Parliament civil liberties committee reacted in a variety of different ways, ranging from disappointment to anger, to the vote on the Claude Moraes (S&D, United Kingdom) report on National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance activities. The ECR was firmly against this report and simply voted against it in the belief that this “self-proclaimed” committee investigation, as described by Timothy Kirkhope, was biased, damaging and encroached on national prerogatives in the security arena.
The EPP Group also differentiated itself during the vote, with the biggest part of the group abstaining, whilst its other members simply voted against the report (12 abstentions from the EPP, with the remainder voting against, according to two different sources). A group spokesperson said that, without any clear improvements in the text, there was a chance that the EPP would follow the same line during the vote on 12 March in Strasbourg at the plenary vote. Although the Conservative party supported certain aspects of the text, such as the suspension of the so-called Safe Harbour agreements, it was against the suspension of the anti-terrorism SWIFT/TFTP agreements, as requested by committee MEPs. The EPP did not want the report to mention countries carrying out surveillance. The report calls on member states to monitor the practices of their secret services and called on the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Poland to “clarify the allegations of mass surveillance - including potential agreements between intelligence services and telecoms firms on access to and exchange of personal data and access to transatlantic cables - and their compatibility with EU laws”. One source indicated that almost all the amendments submitted by the EPP Group were rejected.
Other groups were disappointed by the vote: the Greens/EFA Group and the rapporteur on data protection reform, Jan-Philipp Albrecht, from Germany, would have liked the committee to have called on member states to grant asylum to the consultant, Snowden, who revealed the scandal. In a reference to the rapporteur, Albrecht indicated that “it is scandalous that conservatives and social democrats rejected our request. They have therefore let down a key witness, a whistleblower who had the courage to make public a whole raft of information. Out of fear of undoing the broad coalition with conservatives and embarrassing the US, the social democrats have abandoned their idea of protecting the witness, Snowden. This is cowardly behaviour”. Claude Moraes explained at the end of the vote that the request to grant protection to Snowden was within the exclusive remit of member states.
This report stipulates that consent should only be given for the free-trade agreement currently being discussed by the EU and US if the question of data transfer is clearly excluded. The text states that Parliament's approval of the final Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) with the US “could be endangered as long as blanket mass surveillance activities and the interception of communications in EU institutions and diplomatic representations are not fully stopped and an adequate solution for data privacy rights of EU citizens, including administrative and judicial redress is not found”.
As a consolation prize for the Greens/EFA, the report urges the Commission to examine whether a future EU law establishing a “European whistleblower protection programme” should also include other fields of EU competence “with particular attention to the complexity of whistle blowing in the field of intelligence”. EU member states are also asked to consider granting whistleblowers international protection from prosecution. The United Kingdom was twice hauled over the coals, with MEPs condemning the UK's detention of David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald who had helped publicise the Edwards Snowden leaks.
Contrary to what was indicated in our publication on 13 February (see EUROPE 11017), MEPs on the civil liberties committee at the European Parliament did indeed call for the suspension of the so-called SWIFT/TFTP agreement on the transfer of banking details to the US for the purpose of fighting terrorism. This will be the case until the US authorities have addressed the allegations about their having access to SWIFT bank data outside the terms of the agreement concluded with the EU. (SP/transl.fl)