Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-03-23-Speech-3-205-000"
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"en.20110323.20.3-205-000"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, Parliament is representing the concerns of many European citizens as it pays increased attention to US authorities requesting data from media communications companies after WikiLeaks’ leaking of American state secrets. The Council naturally shares Parliament’s concerns about respect for EU data protection rules. However, it is not in the possession of information from which it could determine whether the US court procedure was in violation of EU data protection laws. As regards the case of WikiLeaks, as referred to by several Members, the United States Attorney General has publicly admitted that there is an ongoing criminal investigation. As far as I know, US attorneys urged, in connection with this investigation, that an American court order Twitter to hand over specific data in a ruling, and the court did adopt the relevant ruling.
It is not the task of the Council to comment upon how the US judicial authorities take their decisions. Additionally, it does not even possess information on the basis of which it could question the validity of a reasoned court ruling. There have been court proceedings in the United States where Twitter was able to defend its own position. This is also proven by the fact that the American court upheld Twitter’s request to inform its clients about the court ruling. The European Union generally respects the court proceedings of third countries. It is self-evident that when investigating a suspected criminal offence, prosecution authorities must obtain information. It is also a well-known fact that the US procedure for obtaining information differs from that followed by the majority of EU Member States. The main difference lies in that it has a wider scope, meaning that it allows for far more information to be requested from a far greater number of persons than a general European criminal investigation or procedure.
This is quite simply the result of the development of US law, meaning that it is not a matter upon which the Council should express its opinion. The enforcement of EU data protection rules is generally the responsibility of Member State authorities, and, more specifically, data protection authorities. These authorities must ensure that data protection rules are respected, and it is these authorities that have competence over matters of jurisdiction and compatibility with European or national data protection laws. It would be inappropriate to make matters investigated in court proceedings the subject of political judgement. Considering the broader context of the issue, the Council is unaware of a similar court ruling having been adopted before. When US authorities previously intended to obtain information relating to EU citizens that was stored within the territory of the EU, the European Union engaged in negotiations with the United States for the conclusion of an international agreement on handing over and processing the aforementioned data.
This was the case, for example, with regard to the Passenger Name Record or PNR, in connection with which there is a PNR agreement, concluded with the United States in 2007, the renegotiation of which is currently in progress, upon the very initiative of Parliament. A similar case is that of handing over financial messaging data stored in the European Union to the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, or TFTP, of the US Department of Finance. The relevant TFTP agreement was approved by Parliament in July 2010.
Finally, I would like to stress that the Twitter case is completely different from the PNR or TFTP cases. The latter two involve US authorities systematically and continuously requesting personal data for the purpose of combating crime, and especially for the fight against terrorism. The Twitter case, on the other hand, is about a specific court ruling adopted by a court in a specific criminal investigation. It is important for us to recognise the rulings of the courts of other countries as much as possible. Except, of course, in cases where there are factors justifying the opposite. Thank you very much, Mr President."@en1
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