BBC News, 3
July 2013
US spy
leaks
- Revelations of US spy scandal
- Where will Snowden end up?
- Is it OK to spy on your allies?
- Wikileaks back in spotlight
EU Commissioner Reding says the right to privacy is "not negotiable" |
EU Justice
Commissioner Viviane Reding said the group would meet this month to begin
assessing the "proportionality" of the US surveillance programmes.
She called
the surveillance "a wake-up call for us to advance on our data protection
reform".
There could
be no EU-US trade deal without mutual trust, she warned.
The
operations were revealed by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, now a fugitive
from US justice, who was last reported to be in the transit zone at Moscow's
Sheremetyevo airport.
Ms Reding
said the working group would focus on the US Prism operation under which,
according to Mr Snowden, the US National Security Agency (NSA) systematically
collects vast amounts of phone and internet data, including communications at
EU offices.
She said she
had also asked UK Foreign Secretary William Hague to clarify the scope and
proportionality of the UK Tempora programme - a vast surveillance operation
allegedly run by the UK spy agency GCHQ and co-ordinated with the NSA.
Spying
condemned
"The
fact that the programmes are said to relate to national security does not mean
that anything goes," Ms Reding said. "A balance needs to be struck
between the policy objective pursued and the impact on fundamental rights, in
particular the right to privacy... privacy is a fundamental right, it is not
negotiable."
She was
speaking in a European Parliament debate on the NSA spying allegations, in
which several MEPs voiced alarm about Mr Snowden's revelations and demanded a
full explanation from the US authorities.
The
parliament, Commission and EU governments are currently negotiating a major
revision of the EU's data protection legislation.
Manfred
Weber, a German MEP in the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), said
"you don't spy on friends" and the US actions were "not
acceptable".
"Our
trust has been shaken, but we still have shared interests. We in the EPP
believe a free trade agreement [with the US] should be concluded." He
added: "The battle will be played out in the field of data
protection."
Sophia in
't Veld, a Dutch MEP in the liberal ALDE group, said: "We have to
guarantee to citizens that they're covered by European, not US, law.
"The
bugging of offices, blanket surveillance of millions of citizens - that's not
national security, I don't buy that anymore," she said, calling for US
President Barack Obama to give an explanation directly to the European
Parliament, representing the EU's 500 million citizens.
She said it
would be "misguided" to suspend the long-awaited EU-US trade talks,
set to begin this month, "but it's absolutely clear we cannot sign an
agreement with a partner we cannot fully trust".
A British
Conservative MEP, Timothy Kirkhope, accused some other MEPs of
"posturing" over the spy allegations and urged the parliament to
gather all the relevant facts before condemning US behaviour.
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