Air Passengers Held Hostage Once More
Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:19 pm
Air Passengers Held Hostage Once More
Come October, it might get difficult to fly to the U.S. from Europe, thanks to a court ruling in the EU last week.
It all stems from a lawsuit by the European Parliament challenging the European Commission's cooperation with U.S. rules requiring the names of every passenger on all inbound flights within 15 minutes of the flight's departure to the U.S. Washington had already made concessions to meet Europe's data-privacy rules. Never mind. The European Court of Justice blew up that agreement last week, ruling that the Commission had no legal basis for entering into it. Crowed one parliamentarian behind the lawsuit: "The response to 9/11 has been costly, both to the taxpayer and individual freedom. Today's judgment vindicates the four-year campaign to protect the privacy of airline passengers."
If you're tempted to see this as an emblem of European unseriousness about the Islamic terrorism problem hatching away in European cites, you'd be right. Michael Cashman, a British Labour delegate to the civil liberties committee, was less than circumspect about the grandstanding motives of his fellow members, telling the Times of London: "Although there are real concerns about privacy, it is being driven by anti-Americanism." This is the same European parliament, after all, that last month made a showy embrace of the French-invented International Day Against Homophobia, with its acronym IDAHO.
Bottom line: If you're thinking about Paris in the autumn, you may want to think twice about how you'll get home. Or whether you will.
-- Brian M. Carney
Come October, it might get difficult to fly to the U.S. from Europe, thanks to a court ruling in the EU last week.
It all stems from a lawsuit by the European Parliament challenging the European Commission's cooperation with U.S. rules requiring the names of every passenger on all inbound flights within 15 minutes of the flight's departure to the U.S. Washington had already made concessions to meet Europe's data-privacy rules. Never mind. The European Court of Justice blew up that agreement last week, ruling that the Commission had no legal basis for entering into it. Crowed one parliamentarian behind the lawsuit: "The response to 9/11 has been costly, both to the taxpayer and individual freedom. Today's judgment vindicates the four-year campaign to protect the privacy of airline passengers."
If you're tempted to see this as an emblem of European unseriousness about the Islamic terrorism problem hatching away in European cites, you'd be right. Michael Cashman, a British Labour delegate to the civil liberties committee, was less than circumspect about the grandstanding motives of his fellow members, telling the Times of London: "Although there are real concerns about privacy, it is being driven by anti-Americanism." This is the same European parliament, after all, that last month made a showy embrace of the French-invented International Day Against Homophobia, with its acronym IDAHO.
Bottom line: If you're thinking about Paris in the autumn, you may want to think twice about how you'll get home. Or whether you will.
-- Brian M. Carney
