11 vague questions, Facebook, Max Schrems and the European Court docket of Justice

Eleven vague questions might maybe be the 1st step in the direction of explaining why we within the UK and Europe dangle experienced 13 years of what has been described as ‘mass and indiscriminate surveillance’ by the US

Kevin Cahill

Kevin Cahill

Printed: 15 Jul 2020

At 9.30am on Thursday in Luxembourg, a country of which we know little, within the European Court docket of Justice (ECJ), a outlandish court of which we know even less, 11 vague well matched questions will be answered.

The solutions will be couched in technical language of excruciating complexity, however they’ll be the 1st step in the direction of explaining why we within the UK and Europe dangle experienced 13 years of what has been described as “mass and indiscriminate surveillance” by the US.

The UK used to be first warned about this surveillance when The Guardian ran its prize-a success myth about American whistleblower Edward Snowden on 5 June 2013. Snowden told the field that the US executive had all of us below surveillance, utilizing nine files superhighway firms as collection brokers in foreign countries love ours. The surveillance programme in most cases known as Prism. As The Guardian used to be telling its myth, one among the tips within the court case on Thursday, Austrian felony educated Max Schrems (pictured above) used to be heading for the Irish High Court docket to quiz that Facebook might maybe well moreover fair tranquil be stopped from stealing his files.

On 18 June 2014, contemplate Gerard Hogan of the Irish High Court docket, in a finding of reality for Max Schrems, acknowledged: “I will proceed on the hypothesis that inner most files transferred by firms similar to Facebook Ireland to its parent company within the United States is thereafter in a position to being accessed by the NSA [National Security Agency] all the map via mass and indiscriminate surveillance of such files.”

The Irish contemplate had been pipped to the submit by an English High Court docket contemplate, Anthony Can even, who warned the UK Parliament on 8 April 2014 that the surveillance printed by Snowden might maybe perhaps be “prison and unlawful” if it used to be tear within the UK.

Seven years in court

Between these two judgments and the solutions on Thursday lies a court case now in its seventh 365 days. The litigation, beginning within the Irish High Court docket in 2013, handed from the Irish High Court docket to the European Court docket of Justice in 2015, then inspire to the Irish High Court docket in 2016, and at final to the Irish Supreme Court docket in 2018, the put a definitive judgment used to be made on 31 Can even 2019. But no longer reasonably. In 2018, in mid-flight between the Irish High Court docket and the Irish Supreme Court docket, an Irish contemplate, Caroline Costello, despatched 11 questions relating to the topic to the European Court docket of Justice, that would moreover moreover be determined this week.

On 31 Can even 2019, led by the chief justice of Ireland, contemplate Frank Clarke, the Irish Supreme Court docket unanimously dismissed an application by the US executive and Facebook to quash contemplate Hogan’s findings of 18 June 2014 – that the US used to be engaged in “mass and indiscriminate surveillance” proper via the EU (including the UK).

Till the US halts the Prism programme, its nine brokers, named within the UK Parliamentary Hansard on 17 April 2018, and every other time on 14 February 2019, as Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail, Skype, You Tube and AOL, live within the frame for his or her half in enabling serious breaches of all EU and UK files safety laws. By now, the number of firms collaborating in Prism and identical surveillance programmes should be far better.

Boris Johnson’s meeting within the Wirral

On 1 November 2018, the UK’s largest behold company, GCHQ, made a public enchantment in Dublin for the Irish spooks to ranking on board for a marketing campaign in opposition to alleged Russian cyber crime.

The Irish spooks identified that questions had been raised within the Irish courts about GCHQ’s companion in surveillance, the US Nationwide Security Company, over its interception of files of EU citizens.

On 10 October 2019, all the map via a 3-hour meeting with the Irish premier (Taoiseach) at the Thornton Manor Lodge on the Wirral, high minister Boris Johnson used to be reminded of what the Irish intelligence company, G2, had told GCHQ. Johnson used to be also appraised, in detail, of the findings of the Irish Supreme Court docket.

He used to be, it has been advised, told that if GCHQ continued its partnership with the NSA, in opposition to EU citizens, the EU would factor in slicing the UK off from all EU files transfers.

Within the front line of all this are the 37 million UK customers of the get, who dangle had their files captured by the US. After seven years of predominant litigation, all of it affecting them however none of it within the UK, in two Supreme Courts, one High Court docket and from the UK Parliament, however unreported, at an estimated designate of over £50m, UK files superhighway customers are unaware of the dimensions of the unlawful theft of their files.

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