BRUSSELS — The Obama administration has encountered mounting resistance in Europe to its demands for broad sharing of airline passenger data and other personal information designed to spot would-be terrorists before they strike.
Europe’s objections, based on privacy considerations, worry U.S. counterterrorism officials because computer scrutiny of passenger lists has become an increasingly important tool in the struggle to prevent terrorists from entering the U.S. or traveling to and from their havens. The fleeing Times Square would-be bomber was hauled off a Dubai- bound airliner in May, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official noted, after his name on the manifest produced a ding in Department of Homeland Security computers.
European privacy advocates have long criticized the U.S. effort to scoop up as much information as possible on U.S.- bound travelers, saying it violates Europe’s data privacy laws. But their power to criticize was boosted recently to the power to block. As of Dec. 1, the Lisbon Treaty gives authority over such accords to the European Parliament, where privacy concerns are widely embraced.
“The administration can’t just stiff-arm them anymore,” said Marc Rotenberg, who heads the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and testified at a European Parliament hearing in Brussels this week.
As a result of lawmakers’ concerns, the European Union executive has demanded a renegotiation of the 4-year-old agreement laying out the conditions under which European airlines can supply passenger data. The move amounts to a recognition that the current accord — already renegotiated after the European Court of Human Rights struck down the first version — could never be approved in the European Parliament as it stands.
