EU commissioner for justice Vivane Reding said her US counterparts assured her that data collection of Europeans' telecom traffic is not conducted in “bulk” by the NSA’s Prism programme, but only when there is strong suspicion of group or individual involvement in cybercrime, terrorism or nuclear proliferation, the Guardian reports. Reding said after a meeting with US law and justice officials in Dublin that data collection is on the basis of an order from a US court with congressional oversight. She insisted that citizens’ rights were “non-negotiable” despite the importance of national security considerations.
The commissioner continued to redress a situation whereby people living in EU countries, regardless of nationality, have the right to sue on the grounds of data privacy violation, while Europeans living in the US cannot do so. US attorney general Eric Holder said the programme was only used if there was reasonable belief that a foreign target is outside the US. He insisted that the programme was subject to extensive oversight.
Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal writes that Holder also spoke of EU and US computer experts preparing to work together to understand what was done with European data collected under the Prism programme. The NSA has used the system to gather information about phone calls of millions of Americans and to track suspected foreigners’ e-mail and internet traffic. German chancellor Angela Merkel intends to discuss the matter with president Barack Obama during his upcoming visit to Berlin.
