EU lawmakers accuse EU govts on secret CIA flights
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STRASBOURG, France  - European governments and secret services accepted and concealed secret U.S. flights taking terrorism suspects across Europe, the European Parliament said on Wednesday.
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European Parliament officials questioned Portuguese authorities Wednesday about apparent discrepancies in evidence about whether alleged CIA flights possibly carrying terrorism suspects landed at Portugal's airports or entered its airspace.
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European governments and secret services accepted and concealed secret U.S. flights taking terrorism suspects across Europe, the European Parliament said on Wednesday.Comment
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EU states on Friday gave preliminary backing to an accord to supply U.S. agencies with data on transatlantic air passengers for use in terror probes, but some said they needed to clear final reservations in their national parliaments, EU diplomats said.
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EU laws are being imposed without proper debate, say peers behind a bid to hold an inquiry into withdrawing from the EU.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Parliament has delayed a vote on how to react to the U.S.' growing appetite for personal information about European citizens, in order to intensify its opposition. The delay follows a debate Wednesday evening in which the two other European Union lawmaking institutions both hardened their positions on the sensitive issue. The groups are drawing up a strategy for how toÂ renegotiate an agreement, over which they have been divided, with the U.S. over theÂ transfer of European air passenger data. The Parliament opposed the original agreement reached in 2004 to share the data -- 34 facts about every European entering or transiting through America by air, including credit card details and information about how and where a plane ticket was purchased. Even though the European Commission -- the E.U.'s executive branch -- and national governments in the 27 E.U. countries support strict European data protection laws, they negotiated an exemption from the rules in order to allow the U.S. to better protect itself from potential terrorist attacks. The European Parliament took the Commission and the Council of Ministers to the European Court of Justice over the passenger data agreement and forced a re-drafting of the law late last year. This agreement expires at the end of July and the E.U. will soon have to renegotiate the deal. While the Parliament is unlikely now to call for the complete scrapping of the agreement, it may well demand a shorter list of categories of data to be handed over. It may also demand that only U.S. immigration officials be granted access to the information. In a debate at the European Parliament Wednesday, Germanyâs deputy foreign minister, Guenther Gloser warned that negotiations with the U.S. will be âtortuous.â Germany holds the six-month rotating presidency of the 27-nation bloc. The European commissioner in charge of justice and home affairs issues, Franco Frattini told Parliamentarians that he has demanded an explanation from his counterparts in Washington D.C. about an apparent misuse of Europeansâ data that flouts both the original passenger rights' agreement as well as its replacement agreed last year. Frattini's concerns focus on the U.S. Automated Targeting System, which has been assessing millions of people since 2002. Some members of the U.S. Congress and privacy advocates believe the program is even illegal under the more lax U.S. data protection laws. "The right to privacy for me is nonnegotiable. It has to be respected," Frattini told the parliamentarians. Frattini's and Gloserâs speeches took many members of the Parliament by surprise, according to one Parliament official actively involved in civil liberties issues. "The MEPs were due to vote on an agreed position regarding the new round of negotiations with the U.S. today, but they have agreed to postpone the vote until the next plenary session in Strasbourg," she said, asking not to be named. The next plenary session is Feb. 12-15. "There is a mixture of joy and skepticism among the parliamentarians after hearing the strong language expressed in defense of Europeans rights to privacy," she said. "It would seem that the Commission and the Council of Ministers are both coming around to the Parliament's way of thinking on this urgent issue." The text is likely to take an even stronger line as a result of the delay, she said. The U.S. has threatened to fine airlines that fail to hand over the records, and to strip them of their landing rights in the U.S. Without any agreement, the airlines will be put in a difficult position: punished if they don't hand over the information, or sued for breaching European data protection laws if they do.
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European Parliament members on Tuesday grilled Hungarian socialist Laszlo Kovacs, the European commissioner-designate for energy, over his competence a day after they refused to endorse Italy&#39;s conservative Rocco Buttiglione as justice commissioner
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GENEVA -- President Bush's confirmation of secret CIA prisons re ignited controversy yesterday, with European lawmakers demanding the exact locations and other critics saying the system tacitly approves torture.
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European leaders have been making  false claims in a commercial-aircraft trade dispute pitting  Boeing Co. BA.N against its Europe-based rival Airbus, a U.S.  senator close to Boeing said on Thursday.
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The European Parliament on Wednesday approved a controversial report accusing Britain, Germany, Italy and other European nations of turning a blind eye to CIA flights transporting terrorism suspects to secret prisons in an apparent breach of EU human rights standards.
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A European investigator says he has evidence the CIA ran secret "war on terror" jails in Poland and Romania.
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PARIS, Feb. 14 -- The European Parliament on Wednesday approved a report admonishing 15 European countries and Turkey for helping the CIA transport terrorism suspects held in secret or for failing to cooperate in the parliament's investigation of the practice.
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PARIS, June 7 -- A European investigator said he has "factually established" that Poland and Romania allowed the CIA to operate secret prisons where alleged al-Qaeda operatives were detained and interrogated, according to documents scheduled to be presented Friday to Europe's official human rights...
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A yearlong European parliamentary investigation into CIA flights transporting terror suspects to secret prisons has yielded a report singling out Britain, Germany and other European heavyweights as colluding with the U.S. secret detention program in an apparent breach of human rights standards.
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A senior U.S. administration official on Wednesday warned that ongoing inquiries into secret CIA activities in the European Union may undermine intelligence cooperation between the United States and European nations.
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BERLIN -- More than two years after a German citizen reported being kidnapped in the Balkans by the CIA, several lawmakers here are criticizing prosecutors for not conducting a more aggressive investigation into the bungled counterterrorism operation.
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Dissidents condemn EU inaction over regime after law is flouted as leader prolongs rule yet again