Brussels, 25/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - It is proving very difficult to arrange testimony from US whistle-blower Edward Snowden whose testimony sparked a huge crisis for the United States' NSA (National Security Agency).
In a vote by show of hands on Monday 24 February, the political groupings at the European Parliament's civil liberties committee confirmed that former National Security Agency worker Edward Snowden, who has currently taken refuge in Russia, may answer the EP's questions in writing. The MEPs have already agreed on the questions they would like to ask him. In a press release, EP rapporteur on changes to data protection Jan-Philipp Albrecht (Greens/EFA, Germany) said: “The confirmation that the European Parliament will finally accept testimony from Edward Snowden in the context of the EP's inquiry is a significant and positive development. To conclude the inquiry without testimony from its key witness would have been an unsatisfactory outcome. The failure to do so would have been an embarrassment and it is a source of relief that ideologically-blinded centre-right and conservative MEPs were faced down”.
Snowden's evidence is being strongly opposed by the Conservatives in the ECR. The EPP abstained from the vote on Monday at the civil liberties committee and is doubtful about the whole question. Officially, it calls for greater protection of the privacy of people in Europe against phone- and email-tapping by the United States but, at the same time, it refuses to support the European Parliament's report on US phone- and email-tapping. The report by Claude Moraes (S&D, United Kingdom) on surveillance by the NSA goes too far, as far as the EPP is concerned. The Greens/EFA says the EP will be able to debate the answers given by Edward Snowden and it hopes the debate can take place at the civil liberties committee on 10 March, ahead of the plenary vote on the Moraes Report. (SP/transl.fl)