Obama Moving in Right Direction on Data Sharing
Conn Carroll /
Monday, the State Department announced that the United States and the European Union have begun “negotiations on an agreement to protect personal information exchanged in the context of fighting crime and terrorism.” This is very welcome news. As Heritage analyst Sally McNamara wrote earlier this month:
The EU–U.S. counterterrorism relationship has been marked as much by confrontation as it has by cooperation. Brussels has long opposed key U.S. counter-terror programs such as renditions, and under new powers granted by the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament has challenged two vital data-transfer deals—the SWIFT data-sharing agreement and the EU–U.S. Passenger Name Records (PNR) Agreement. (more…)