EU-US summit joint statement ignores European civil rights

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Deutsch: [EU-US Gipfel: Gemeinsame Erklärung missachtet Europäische Bürgerrechte | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.23_EU-US-Gipfel_Gemeinsame_Erklaerung_missachtet_Europaeische_Buergerrechte?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20111130]

A common statement issued at the EU-US summit that took place on 28 November
2011 at the White House in Washington included several aspects with direct
impact on digital civil rights that shows the US have succeeded again in
obtaining what they wanted, while the European Union representatives have
failed to protect the EU citizens fundamental rights, especially the right
to privacy.

The statement clearly states that while the PNR agreement was negotiated,
there is still no deadline for an EU-US data protection agreement.
“We welcome the successful completion of negotiations on a new Passenger
Name Record agreement, and look forward to its early adoption and
ratification” says item 18 of the statement which continues by mentioning
the intention to finalize negotiations on a “comprehensive EU-U.S. data
privacy and protection agreement that provides a high level of privacy
protection for all individuals and thereby facilitates the exchange of data
needed to fight crime and terrorism.”

US have also pushed in support for the CoE Cybercrime Convention, but there
is nothing stated in relation with a commitment to ratify or at least start
to negotiate any of the fundamental rights conventions of the CoE. Also, the
US has rejected a request from the Commission to include net neutrality in
the statement, but they have managed to get in their wording on the
engagement with the private sector.

“We welcome the progress made by the EU-U.S. Working Group on Cyber-security
and Cyber-crime, notably the successful Cyber Atlantic 2011 exercise. We
endorse its ambitious goals for 2012, including combating online sexual
abuse of children; enhancing the security of domain names and Internet
Protocol addresses; promotion of international ratification, including by
all EU Member States, of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime ideally by
year’s end; establishing appropriate information exchange mechanisms to
jointly engage with the private sector; and confronting the unfair market
access barriers that European and U.S. technology companies face abroad,”
says item18 of the joint statement.

EU-U.S. Summit joint statement (28.11.2011)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/842