It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens

In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it&#x27;s appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us).<p>Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let&#x27;s wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don&#x27;t think so.

Problem is quite a few european countries right now don&#x27;t trust american companies anymore so they are working on their own mail service, cloud, network and hardware components, ... (you know if american companies agreed with american government to spy on us they kinda deserve a nice f<i></i>k off).<p>So who is damaged by this european behaviour? American companies. And now Google is suddenly concerned about our privacy.<p>Middle finger?

Wait, we have a Privacy Act? I&#x27;m assuming it doesn&#x27;t work, then.

Google: You&#x27;d better listen to us than opposite.<p>Other than in UK I&#x27;m more than happy with European privacy legislation compared to US. It&#x27;s imageable that we could grant Snowden asylum, but you would put him in jail for 20 years at least. There are also - afaik and except UK - no laws which enforce corporations to spy on behalf of the government without being able to stand behind these actions.<p>Right to forget. Would such a thing come from the US?

I find the situation where we grant rights to our citizens without granting them to foreigners (particularly citizens of our close allies, but also foreigners in general) bizarre and backwards. While I&#x27;m sure that there are some rights that cannot be extended to non-citizens, it seems that the default should be to treat all people independently of their country of origin unless there are strong arguments why we cannot.

Meanwhile in US Congress:<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/12/new-spying-laws-cybersecurity-nsa-fbi" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;commentisfree&#x2F;2014&#x2F;nov&#x2F;12&#x2F;new-spy...</a>

Given the secrecy on this topic, the anti-democracy that was revealed by Snowden and how the US government (and other institutions) deals with this makes that sound very naive. As sad as this might make me I do not see ordinary democratic ways working anymore in the US. However I&#x27;d love to see someone proving me wrong.

Sorry, but Google is probably the biggest threat to our privacy.

Speaking as an Australian: <i>Hello! Yes please?</i>

Yeah, well this wouldn&#x27;t be as much of a problem if Google didn&#x27;t harvest all the data just because they can, would it?

Why just EU? The EU delegates can pressure US to cover anyone under the act not just EU residents. If US bends to EU&#x27;s demands about privacy but doesn&#x27;t treat rest of the world similarly then it says something about US.

It&#x27;s often claimed that politics in the US is run by &#x2F; dominated by corporations.<p>I find the contradiction in that claim at times like this to be especially dramatic. The biggest corporations in America - Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc - are actively being harmed by the US Government. US telecoms are having the doors shut to business in Europe and Asia, because of this stuff. Countless billions in profit are at stake.<p>Another headline from today: corporations are holding $2 trillion overseas, because of the wonky corporate tax policies of the US. If corporations actually ran anything, that wouldn&#x27;t be a problem.

That or the NSA could simply stop indiscriminate spying of the general public.<p>Why not solve the actual problem instead of making small amendments that at best serve as a sales arguments for Google in Europe?

While you are at it, why not include all humans? Why just EU?

There is a lot I like about the US. Trust the US however, I cannot. Whether this passes or doesn&#x27;t. There&#x27;s been to much of the bad stuff for too long.

Looks like Google is really worried about the antitrust movement getting steam in the EU. That&#x27;s probably why MG Siegler is in the EU now.

EU privacy laws are already stronger than in the US. All Google needs to do is to actually abide by them, but being based in the US, evidently they can&#x27;t. The fact that they have to try to change US government policy in order to extend privacy to their international users is a pretty sad state of affairs and a warning to potential international clients.

I think it&#x27;s time the reverse is also true, since governments are only half of the problem. Companies are the other half. EU privacy rules need to be applied to US citizens as well.<p>Between apply the US Privacy Act to EU Citizens and applying EU privacy rules to US citizens, both US and EU citizens will enjoy less surveillance from governments and corporations.

Any observation by Google of the EU Safe Harbor Act in this post? <a href="http://www.export.gov/safeharbor/eu/eg_main_018365.asp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.export.gov&#x2F;safeharbor&#x2F;eu&#x2F;eg_main_018365.asp</a>

I would say: Canada, Britain, and Australia yes. They&#x27;re consistent and steady allies. To the rest of the EU, who is hellbent on giving America the finger whenever possible... sorry about it. Clean up your act, kick the spies, human trafficking, blatant corruption, sympathy for murderous regimes out of your countries, and we&#x27;ll think about this. We&#x27;re not perfect either, but we&#x27;re trying. Show the same effort and we can move forward.

Careful, we really don&#x27;t want to set any precedent for pushing American law onto other countries - PATRIOT ACT anyone?

If only Obama was in some sort of position with power to do something....................................

Get your own Privacy Act! And get off my lawn!

EU is a part of the US, surprise.