Translated material
Coded Europeans
US digitizes air passengers
Last night in the European Parliament a discussion began on the principles of further cooperation with the United States in the fight against terrorism. According to the European Commission, their goal is to “maintain existing restrictions” regarding the use of confidential information about air passengers.The scandal is related to the activities of US intelligence services. Parliamentarians were concerned about the uncontrolled leakage overseas of personal data of passengers of European airlines and information about banking transactions. According to many deputies, the American side interprets the agreements between Brussels and Washington too broadly.
A 2004 EU-US agreement required airlines operating transatlantic flights to provide US authorities with a variety of information about each air passenger. The agreement has been modified several times, and the current version expires at the end of July.
Information of interest to the United States is accumulated in 34 sections of the database for each air passenger. In addition to traditional personal information (name, year and place of birth, address), this also includes previous flight history, total miles flown, credit card numbers, bank account and personal phone numbers, email addresses and much more. All this supposedly allows the United States to quickly recognize “suspicious behavior” of citizens that betrays their potential terrorist intentions.
But the Americans went further and decided to create a global data system about Europeans. Secretly from the EU, they created a computer monster called the “Automatic Target Identification System.” It contained all the personal data that the United States received from European airlines and financial institutions. Each potential visitor to the United States was assigned a digital terrorist threat code, depending on which the European, upon arrival in America, could be subjected to a thorough interview or even sent home.
Outraged Europeans have accused the US of abusing the EU's goodwill by seeking access to even more sensitive information beyond the previously established 34 sections - particularly through European telecoms providers and insurance companies. In response, US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff demanded “more flexibility” from Europe in the use of personal information.
Difficult negotiations between the EU and the US to hammer out a new agreement are due to begin in March. According to the head of the European Security Department at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dmitry Danilov, this problem clearly reflects the crisis phenomena that have recently been growing in relations between Europe and the United States. “We are not talking about disagreements of a working order, but about differences in value guidelines, in the understanding of democratic values. And these issues cannot be resolved using traditional political and diplomatic methods,” noted Vremya Novostey’s interlocutor. The problem is that within the EU there is no unity regarding the principles of interaction with the United States in the fight against terrorism. “A number of Eastern European countries focus their policies primarily on the United States, and therefore pan-European values for them remain largely a declaration. They are not committed to the pan-European value foundation from which practical politics should grow,” the expert recalls.