[governance] On the EU Court's Striking Down Safe Harbor

Seth Johnson seth.p.johnson at gmail.com
Wed Oct 14 06:12:30 EDT 2015


One more:

This could frame an optimal approach to these concerns in the US,
particularly if it's set up on the basis of the US Constitution's ban
on unreasonable searches and seizures, and arranged the way the EU did
it, establishing a review of whether arrangements with other countries
preserve US citizens' fundamental rights. If the executive branch
calls that an encroachment on its powers, the question of what we can
do to secure the constitutional frame we the people set up for
ourselves is still the debate we want to have -- not the bogus "hide
what's really going on" debate we presently have on these issues. BTW:
smart use of divided/dual sovereignty (again reflecting the way the
framework in the EU is set up) might well in this case help to make
this sort of thing work.

Note well: this is not an international treaty on human rights that
makes it work.  International treaties on rights serve some valid
(aspirational) purposes, but they don't give you real fundamental
rights.

Safe Harbor Decision Could Spur Congressional Action On Privacy
Rights, Data Safeguards:
> http://www.ibtimes.com/safe-harbor-decision-could-spur-congressional-action-privacy-rights-data-safeguards-2131442

"International privacy advocates are demanding U.S. lawmakers pass
comprehensive reform that guarantees personal data stored in the
country is protected with the same safeguards as data in Europe. "

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 6:07 AM, Seth Johnson <seth.p.johnson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I call the confusion on this a "statutory bias" -- a tendency to think
> you fix everything by passing a law or treaty. People don't understand
> how popular sovereignty sets a foundation that makes modes of recourse
> actually work. The EU based its fundamental rights charter on the
> founding acts of the people that claimed those rights within the
> several nations that make up the EU. As a result, the courts
> appropriately apply fundamental rights as rights that take priority
> over acts of the government, and in this case that applied to a treaty
> with the US. A human rights treaty could never produce this kind of
> result, because it's a treaty among governments, not an act setting
> the priority of fundamental rights as limits on government. A whole
> lot of the frame of "Internet governance" has a problem understanding
> this basic characteristic of what's different in the international
> arena.
>
> Safe Harbor's falling down this year was a serious advance in the
> discourse just when we needed it -- before a blind handoff of Internet
> stewardship proceeded without understanding the nature of the
> transition (This point would apply regardless of whether the Internet
> had been "hosted" by the US or any other free country).
>
> LIBE Committee to Commission: Why Did Safe Harbor Last 15 Years?
>> https://iapp.org/news/a/libe-committee-to-commission-why-did-safe-harbor-last-15-years
>
> European Court Chief Defends Decision to Strike Down Data-Transfer Agreement:
>> http://www.wsj.com/articles/european-court-chief-defends-decision-to-strike-down-data-transfer-agreement-1444768419

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