[discuss] [governance] NTIA statement

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 02:38:31PM -0400, Pranesh Prakash (pranesh at cis-india.org) wrote:

> Shatan, Gregory S. <GShatan at ReedSmith.com> [2014-03-16 19:22:42]:
 
> >Perhaps the EU member states should throw open their surveillance
> >activities for public scrutiny, so that we could compare and
> >contrast the levels and types of mass surveillance actually going
> >on. Then we could make more reasoned judgments about "issues of
> >trust."

I can't argue with "should" but I think chances of that actually
happening are about as likely as Crimean election being fair
or the Moon turning into cheese.

> >Since the EU isn't really a "government," and presumably does not
> >itself take on significant surveillance activities, it has
> >"plausible deniability" when it comes to such things. This allows
> >the EU to "throw the first stone," while not really being "without
> >sin."

> Do you honestly believe that?

I actually believe that EU _qua_ EU does not itself take on
significant surveillance activities, if only because EU members
distrust each other too much, and I agree EU isn't really a government
either - but for that very reason it also can't really act as one:
Who or what would be casting the first stone if "EU" were to do it?
EU cannot act in a way that would avoid revealing the "sin" of its
members here (and they all do take on significant surveillance activities
as well as spying on each other, limited only by their abilities).

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen
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