Bugged
by US spying, EU may sever ties with American internet providers
RT,
5
July, 2013
EU
businesses are threatening to terminate relations with American
internet providers in response to the National Security Agency
surveillance scandal, the European Commission has warned.
Neelie
Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, said that US
providers of ‘cloud services,’ a technology that permits clients
to store data on remote servers, could suffer steep losses if users
fear the security of their material is at risk of being compromised.
"If
businesses or governments think they might be spied on, they will
have less reason to trust cloud, and it will be cloud providers who
ultimately miss out,” Kroes said. “Why would you pay someone else
to hold your commercial or other secrets if you suspect or know they
are being shared against your wishes?"
The
EC vice president then pointed to the “multi-billion euro
consequences” facing US internet companies in the wake of the
scandal.
"It
is often American providers that will miss out, because they are
often the leaders in cloud services. If European cloud customers
cannot trust the United States government, then maybe they won't
trust US cloud providers either. If I am right, there are
multibillion-euro consequences for American companies. If I were an
American cloud provider, I would be quite frustrated with my
government right now."
AFP
Photo / John Macdougall
On
Thursday, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a non-binding
resolution that says the US should provide full disclosure about its
email and communications data, otherwise two EU-US transatlantic
information-sharing deals - the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
(TFTP) and Passenger Name Records (PNR) - could be revoked.
Relations
between Washington and Brussels suffered a setback in June when
former NSA analyst Edward Snowden leaked details of a top-secret US
data-mining surveillance program, known as Prism, which operated both
in the United States and the European Union.
Prism
is said to give the NSA and FBI user information from some of the
world’s largest internet companies, including Google, Facebook,
Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Skype.
Der
Spiegel cited a secret 2010 document alleging that the US spied on
internal computer networks in Washington, as well as at the 27-member
bloc's UN office and EU offices in New York.
The
NSA paper also allegedly refers to the EU as a "target.”
According
to Der Spiegel, the US surveillance system spied on some 500 million
telephone and internet recordings in Germany each month, ramping up
fears that the United States was not simply collecting data to
prevent against acts of terrorism, but was involved in full-scale
industrial espionage.
In
response to heated European criticism of the US surveillance
activities, US President Barack Obama this week seemed to downplay
the severity of the situation when he commented: "I guarantee
you that in European capitals, there are people who are interested
in, if not what I had for breakfast, at least what my talking points
might be should I end up meeting with their leaders. That's how
intelligence services operate."
During
a Wednesday phone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
Obama sought to reassure her that the United States would provide the
Europeans with details of their surveillance program.
Meanwhile,
in an effort to contain the damage from the revelations, ambassadors
to the European Union agreed on Thursday to proceed with EU-US
negotiations on a new transatlantic free trade pact, scheduled to
open in Washington on Monday.
EU
commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes.(AFP Photo / Georges
Gobet)
During
the EU-US trade negotiations it will certainly not go unnoticed that
crucial European positions in the trade talks may already be
compromised due to the wide-scale surveillance. EU officials do not
want the issue of America’s covert spy program to be the elephant
in the room which nobody talks about.
Dalia
GrybauskaitÄ—, the president of Lithuania, which takes over the
rotating six-month EU presidency this week, said on Thursday that she
awaits “information” – not apologies - from the Americans over
the spying allegations.
"They
are open to co-operation. They are open to explain," she said.
"I never seek an apology from anyone. I seek information … We
don't want to jeopardize the strategic importance of free trade."
Grybauskaite
insisted that the scandal, which has shown no sign of abating, should
not be allowed to obstruct the trade talks but acknowledged that
"some countries are very sensitive on this question."
Meanwhile,
Britain may also have some explaining to do on the sidelines of next
week’s trade talks since it was suggested that the UK's Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), through a system known as
Tempora, has had access to the US internet monitoring program since
at least June 2010.
The
European Commission vice president said that US companies could
suffer from the US government's covert intelligence-gathering
activities.
"Concerns
about cloud security can easily push European policy-makers into
putting security guarantees ahead of open markets, with consequences
for American companies,” Kroes warned. “Cloud has a lot of
potential. But potential doesn't count for much in an atmosphere of
distrust."
Robert
Bridge is the author of the book, Midnight
in the American Empire, which discusses the dangerous
consequences of excessive corporate power now prevalent in the United
States.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.