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European Lawmaker To Sue U.S. Over Data
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The accord has been the subject of E.U.-U.S. talks since February 2007 -- an effort to "stop the fighting," said Paul Rosenzweig, DHS deputy assistant secretary for policy, referring to difficult negotiations over the transmission of air passenger records and financial transaction data from Europe to the United States.
"The entire point of this exchange of views is for us to discuss with the Europeans what our safeguards are and for them to show us what their safeguards are so that we can be confident that the safeguards each is using are suitable," Rosenzweig said. On the U.S. side, that includes limits on access, how long data can be kept, what the information can be used for and punishment for people who violate the rules, he said.
The Bush administration hopes to finalize the accord by the end of the year.
But European parliamentarians are concerned that broad exceptions could be written into the rules and that a lack of effective redress remedies could open the door to misuse. "The whole issue is not about giving your private data to the United States but not being able to control it and not knowing who is going to protect that data, whether or not a court is going to have any power to correct abuses because abuses are going to take place," said Ignasi Guardans, a member of parliament from Spain.
One solution, he said, would be applying 1974 Privacy Act protections to European citizens, which would allow them to ask a court to force an agency to provide access to personal records held on them and to correct errors.
To do so would require Congress to amend the law, Rosenzweig said, adding that the administrative remedies are at least as effective as going to court. DHS's TRIP has cleared thousands of people off the no-fly list, for example, he said.
Moreover, the Privacy Act is no panacea, as the U.S. government generally exempts national security databases from the statute's judicial-review provision, Sobel said. "In reality," he said, "American citizens are in the same boat as Europeans are."
