14 DAY TRIAL // The European Union Parliament is condemning the unprecedented and indiscriminate mass data gathering by the United States and the United Kingdom in a new draft report.
According to the Guardian, the report it managed to obtain uses quite a few strong terms to condemn the mass surveillance activities of the NSA and the GCHQ, its British counterpart.
The European Parliament calls on the United States and the UK, as well as any other governments, to halt the data collection that has reached “an unprecedented scale” and that has been conducted in an “indiscriminate and non-suspicion-based manner.”
The report wants the United States and the European Union members to prohibit blanket mass surveillance activities and bulk processing of personal data, given the doubt looming over the claims that such practices have actually aided the fight against terrorism.
The European Union also notes that the mentioned intelligence agencies have declined to co-operate with the inquiry.
Recently, the same civil liberties committee voted to interview Edward Snowden via video call from Russia after the whistleblower expressed his willingness to help with the investigation.
The report also insists that mass surveillance has potentially severe effects on the freedom of the press, as well as the potential for abuse of information gathered against political opponents. The UK, Germany, France, Sweden and the Netherlands are also set to get advised to review the laws governing the activities of intelligence services to ensure that they are in line with the human rights convention.
Ultimately, the European Parliament report demands that the United States revise its own laws to bring them into line with international laws to recognize the privacy and other rights of EU citizens.
It’s taken over seven months, but the European Union seems to finally have a strong position towards the reports based on Edward Snowden’s leaked documents.