Where European Countries Stand on Privacy Versus Security

Kevin Bankston was interviewed in Public Radio International about privacy and security after the Paris attacks:

“You see France after the Charlie Hebdo attacks passing a massive new surveillance bill that goes much farther than US law,” says Kevin Bankston, director of the Open Technology Institute at New America, a public policy think tank.

“You see the UK right now debating and likely to pass a new law that goes far beyond what US law authorizes.”

European countries have different stances on digital security, but generally are more willing than the US to grant governments access to personal data. Part of the United States’ wariness over government surveillance stems directly from a now-infamous incident in 2013, in which US intelligence worker Edward Snowden leaked secret documents revealing that the National Security Agency was secretly collecting data on millions of Americans. 

Snowden was both hailed as a hero and condemned as a traitor, but Bankston says quibbling about Snowden’s place in history is “stupid.”

What matters, he says, is recognizing that the release of those documents sparked "a substantial policy debate about security and liberty and privacy that we were not having previously.”

But Bankston says, the Snowden leaks didn't engender the same type of conversation in Europe.

"In terms of surveillance by the government, I think we are in a very interesting situation where Europe is angry at the United States, but is failing to look at its own practices," Bankston says. "The fact is, Snowden at least prompted a debate about the scope of the US surveillance power in the US. It doesn't seem to have done that in Europe. ... Instead what you are seeing is the expansion of surveillance power happening in Europe."