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Thread: US-EU data dispute should be recast as part of larger national security debate w/challengers like China. New piece in @lawfareblog w/ @henryfarrell https://www.lawfareblog.com/schrems-ii-offers-opportunity-if-us-wants-take-it
2/For the past two decades, the US and Europe papered over differences in domestic privacy rules to facilitate a vibrant transatlantic data economy. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44257.pdf
3/The European Court of Justice scuppered the deal throwing the US/EU data transfers into a shroud of uncertainty. https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/16/europes-top-court-strikes-down-flagship-eu-us-data-transfer-mechanism/
4/Why? Many US observers blame European overreach and are advocating that the US walk away. https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-can-us-respond-schrems-ii
5/As @henryfarrell and I argue, building on our rent book, we think that this is a myopic view that misses the big picture on how surveillance politics have changed since 9/11. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691183640/of-privacy-and-power
6/In short, after 9/11 the US saw global economic networks as a global surveillance instrument. The SWIFT system and internet fiber optic cables became the key to the US panopticon. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isec_a_00351?journalCode=isec
7/The @Snowden made the fall of the US-EU data sharing agreement inevitable because it exposed how private sector information networks could not be protected from the NSA and other intelligence actors.
8/ Now enter China and 5G. The US is worried that if Huawei and others provide the backbone that they will do to the US and Europe what the US did to the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/technology/fcc-huawei-zte-national-security.html
9/So here is the opportunity for US national security actors. The US-EU Privacy dispute is no longer a commercial problem or a national security problem. It is both. And the US can use a deal to push back against an alternative China-based system.
10/Yes, this would include giving legal protections to European citizens against abuse. And perhaps new forms of technological solutions to do so.
11/But fundamentally, it would view international civil liberties not as incompatible with national security but core to its success. A league of democracies only works if it upholds the core values. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/pompeo-china-speech-nixon-library-1.5661003
12/Practically, it would raise the legitimacy of our intel agencies among our allies and facilitate cooperation.
13/As we move from a world of a unilateral US panopticon to competition w/China, the European Court of Justice has served a wake up call and done the US a favor. Time to take them up on it and embed civil liberties into the transatlantic national security bargain.
