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back to article House of Lords steps into US-EU data spat

The House of Lords has called for some fair play in the homeland front of the "war on terror" after examining the massive data gathering exercises the US is using to build risk profiles of people travelling through its borders. In weighing the balance between public security and private rights, the House of Lords EU Committee …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Monkey is 95% human partial match

    "We've only been given one piece of evidence that the collection of PNR has avoided any terrorist outrage," he said. And even then that suspected terrorist wasn't caught: he was turned away at the US border - his partial fingerprints were later found on the steering wheel of a car bomb that killed 132 people in Iraq."

    Doubtful, if he was a terrorist suspect they'd have let him in, monitored him and arrested him saving 132 lives. The partial match thing sounds like post justification, i.e. you catch a rhesus monkey and say it's DNA is 95% match for the terrorists! We saved you from the terrorist monkey! This is why we don't let politicians convict people.

    The solution is for the USA to share it's list of suspected terrorist, and for the Europeans to investigate it themselves and convince themselves to their standards that the person is a terrorist. Europe is not in the USA jurisdiction, it's in the European one, and the person has to be stopped before flying, so he would be in European jurisdiction!

    i.e. do their duty and protect our sovereign rights as independent nation states rather than make us a satellite state to the USA without the right to vote.

    If USA won't share their suspect list, then it's likely a bad list stuffed full of false names, like their 'no fly list'.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/05/60minutes/main2066624.shtml

    Lets be realistic about it, USA is our ally, not our mother and we compete with them on everything. It's not in our interests to see European internal data handed to the USA. It's not in our interests to let USA political appointees make unchallengeable decision that can negatively impact us. It's not in our interests to hand enforcement to them.

    We don't have a say in how they behave, we have no voting rights there.

    If someone has a similar name to a known terrorist, the solution isn't a do not fly list, it's to investigate and prosecute. The problem with 'Do not fly lists', is they're created by political appointees and are full of shaved terrorist monkeys.

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  2. Chris Simmons

    Screw 'em

    <rant>

    Sod the bleedin' yanKKKs. After a multitude of claims of altruism and "doing good in the world" and spreading their so-called perversion of democracy and freedom they can keep it.

    Just retreat back behind your own borders and STFU. I'd love to know how all the 10's of thousands of dead Iraqi, Afghani and other citizens feel about the new-found freedoms they have.

    </rant>

    Seriously though folks, I cannot think of a nation less qualified to lecture the world on any aspect of individual, corporate, political or journalistic ethics/morals/behaviour (forget about China and DPRK for now).

    As the previous poster commented about the shaved chimp in the shitehouse - they're not giving us rights to vote in their elections (albeit fixed ones and with many disenfranchised ethnic voters). I act in my own small way and that is with my wallet; I no longer buy anything ameriKKKan, I will always try to find a European, African or Asian alternative or just go without.

    Damn, I hope that this will not be FotW fodder; sorry.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A taste of their own medicine

    This is a failure of our diplomats, plain and simple. Just as with our bad extradition treaty, there is a one-sided feeling to the US' behaviour. See http://news.google.co.uk/archivesearch?hl=en&q=UK+US+extradition+treaty+site:news.bbc.co.uk particularly in relation to the Natwest Three.

    The answer is simple. When our diplomats hear the proposals for whatever treaty they are negotiating, they should turn around and said that any terms are fine so long as the treaty applies absolutely equally to both sides. Make sure the other side realises the treaty will be enacted equally in both word and deed by us then we follow through. Thus, to get an invasion of our privacy we invade their privacy to the same degree.

    If the diplomats did not stray one iota from this principle, how far do you think the US passenger profiling would get?

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