US snooping, seen through a European PRISM

There are few things that can unite the quarrelling factions of the European Parliament, but somehow US President Barack Obama managed to accomplish it this morning. One by one, MEPs from various political factions denounced in the strongest terms the recent revelations of US government access to user activity data from internet giants like Google, Facebook and Microsoft – a programme that went under the codename PRISM.

Interestingly, it was the assurances the US President gave to the American people this weekend that seemed to infuriate the European lawmakers the most. The PRISM programme “does not apply to US citizens and it does not apply to people living the United States,” he told a press conference on 7 June. 

These words may have reassured many Americans, but they have put America's allies in an awkward position. Sites like Google and Facebook are global, after all, and widely used in Europe. If they aren't spying on Americans' internet use, then that means they are spying on people in other countries - including allies in Europe.

“What is coming from other side of the Atlantic is very worrying because they are justifying this system by saying it is not applicable to US citizens, only to foreigners,” Belgian Liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt said in Strasbourg this morning. “Who are the foreigners? I think we are the foreigners, the Europeans.”

Denmark to probe CIA terror flights

Denmark has become the latest European country to launch an investigation into covert CIA flights transporting terror suspects. Interestingly, this time the renditions in question took place in a territory outside of Europe: Greenland.

A documentary broadcast Wednesday by the DR1 TV network in Denmark made a claim that CIA flights transporting terror suspects touched down at an airport in Greenland in 2005. The Danish prime minister responded on Thursday by saying it is fully investigating the claim. Greenland is an overseas province of Denmark.

The flight would have been part of the controversial and top-secret “extraordinary rendition” program the CIA has been running in which terror suspects were transported to countries outside the United States. Human rights groups have claimed the flights were intended to transfer the prisoners to countries or jurisdictions that allow torture.

Secret prisons in Europe

Europe delivered a rebuke to the United States last week, although it was hardly without controversy on the continent. The EU Parliament approved a report yesterday that accuses key European nations of colluding or turning a blind eye to the CIA practice of “extraordinary renditions” and allowing the CIA “secret prisons” to be allowed on the continent.

The report is significant because it requires the countries in question, the UK, Italy, Germany and other nations, to conduct investigations into what has been happening over the past five years. It comes at the same time an Italian judge has indicted 26 Americans and 5 Italians for involvement in the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar on the streets of Milan in 2003. Abu Omar was abducted in Milan, taken to Aviano Air Base and then flown via Ramstein in Germany to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. The indictment is the first time the practice of extraordinary rendition could face scrutiny in open court, with the trial set to begin in June.

So, the approval of the report by both the EU Parliament and the EU Commission is sort of the first shot in what could be a long battle between the EU and the US over what went on the last five years here. And essentially the question that could be asked is this: Has the US overstepped its bounds in its military relationships with European nations, and has Europe been too accommodating to the military wishes of the US? The question that I think needs to be asked is this. Is it time to end the US military occupation of Europe?

Europe Caught

The big story today is the Council of Europe report implicating 14 European countries – including Britain, Germany and even Sweden – of aiding or being complicit in the illegal kidnapping and transfer of suspects by the US. Swiss Senator Dick Marty, in a press release accompanying the report, said despite their protestations after the Washington Post revealed the existence of secret detention centers in Eastern Europe, certain individual European governments knew of the plan.

What the report doesn’t include is hard evidence of the existence of these detention centers or the transfers, but concludes it is nearly certain they exist in Poland and Romania. The reaction by those two governments has been laughable, with some representatives claiming to be incredulous that such an outrageous accusation has been made, and others candidly admitting that the findings are true.

One thing is for certain: this entire debacle will cause lasting damage to US-Europe relations, and European countries will be extremely hesitant to cooperate with the US when it requests assistance in the future. In fact, I suspect some countries, like Germany, may question whether the US base presence in the country can still be justified, and may insist that these bases be put under NATO control.