Phony US/EU Spying Limitations Deal

Longstanding NSA policy involves global spying, intensively on allies and adversaries, including dozens of foreign leaders, the Pope and other prominent world figures.

They agency’s objective is get it all – for political and economic advantage, to be one up on foreign competitors, for information used advantageously in trade, geopolitical and military relations.

Big Brother watches everyone. Domestic spying has nothing to do with protecting national security. Homeland terrorist threats are entirely state-sponsored.

Washington targets its own citizens and residents, framing innocent victims for crimes they didn’t commit.

Any nation, group or individual opposing America’s imperial agenda is vulnerable. The NSA, CIA and other US spy agencies operate unrestrained with virtually no oversight.

Spying on Europe is longstanding, enormous amounts of meta-data collected unrelated to security concerns. It’s pure espionage, foreign embassies, consulates and missions bugged, using sophisticated communications gear.

The NSA calls them “targets,” electronic transmissions in all forms monitored covertly. Nothing in prospect indicates US spy agencies changing their practices.

America can’t be trusted. It notoriously breaches deals agreed to, the latest involving meaningless “written (US and EU spying limitations) assurances.”

European digital single market commissioner Andrus Ansip discussed a newly instituted “Privacy Shield,” replacing the earlier “Safe Harbour” agreement, annulled last October by the European Court of Justice – its aim to protect Europeans’ privacy, a futile initiative with virtually no chance of succeeding.

Ansip claimed Washington “clarified (its alleged intention) not (to) carry out indiscriminate mass surveillance of Europeans,” providing written assurances not worth the paper they’re written on.

According to EU justice commissioner Vera Jourova, the White House and national intelligence office provided guarantees – worthless like all US deals, made to be broken.

A meaningless State Department special ombudsman position will be created, charged with investigating accusations of US spying violations – able to downplay or whitewash them.

Trust was never an American long suit, accountability for deals breached and criminal actions entirely absent.

Dutch European Parliament member (MEP) Sophie in’t Veld criticized the deal, saying its “assurances…rely exclusively on political commitment, instead of legal (safeguards). So any change in the political constellation in the US may undo the whole thing.”

German MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht called the newly instituted “Privacy Shield” meaningless.

It’s not legally binding, relying on nonexistent good US intentions, able to interpret things any way it wishes – assuring no change in dirty business as usual, America’s longstanding practice.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]. His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”. www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html Visit his blog site at www.sjlendman.blogspot.com.