EU Parliament calls for data protection

A majority of members in the EU Parliament are coming out against the Swift Agreement allowing US authorities access to data on European bank customers. The daily Die Presse is glad that a political countermovement to hyper-surveillance is finally forming: "We must not let the very genuine fear of terror attacks destroy such basic liberal rights as data protection. The argument 'if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear' is just a metaphor for widespread naiveté that is being encouraged in the name of ever-increasing surveillance. By the same logic we could allow priests to breach the confessional secret and absolve doctors of their oath to privacy. Then we shoudn't be surprised when the police and insurance companies start setting up reliability profiles on us or when our coloscopies are published on YouTube."

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