The European commission’s vice-president, Viviane Reding, has sent a letter with seven detailed questions to the US attorney general, Eric Holder Jr, demanding explanations about Prism and other American data snooping programmes.
Here are the seven questions. Answers on a postcard please.
- Are Prism and other similar programmes aimed only at the data of US citizens and residents, or also – even primarily – at non-US nationals, including EU citizens?
- Is access to, collection of or processing of data on the basis of Prism and other programmes … limited to specific and individual cases, and if so what criteria are applied?
- Is the data of individuals accessed, collected or processed in bulk (or on a very wide scale, without justification relating to specific individual cases) either regularly or occasionally?
- Is the scope of these programmes restricted to national security or foreign intelligence or is it broader?
- What avenues, judicial or administrative, are available to companies in the US or the EU to challenge access to, collection of and processing of data under Prism or other programmes?
- What avenues are available to EU citizens to be told if they are affected by Prism or other similar programmes and how do they compare with those available to US citizens?
- What avenues are available to EU citizens or companies to challenge access to, collection of and processing of their personal data under Prism and similar programmes, and how does that compare with the rights of US citizens?
How many of your national governments did anything remotely similar?
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