They have done it again! After condemning full body scanners as being in conflict with human rights, the European Parliament now voted down the so called SWIFT accord, something that would have given US authorities more visibility of the funds being transferred between the world’s banks and hence would have enabled better tracking of the activities of terrorist groups. The European Ministers of Justice had approved the SWIFT accord but this was now killed by the EP. The reason? The privacy of European citizens was not properly protected under the agreement, some euro-parliamentarians claimed.
In case you have forgotten, the European Parliament is the circus that commutes between Strasbourg in France and Brussels in Belgium because European States could not decide where it should actually be headquartered and the members of which are chosen in elections with record low (and decreasing) turnout of European citizens. In 2009 the average turn-out across the Union was just 43 %…
Watching on TV as the good EP members cheered at this latest folly, one was reminded of a bunch of immature school children who had just pulled off a particularly nasty prank.
Of course on a pure performance basis, they had every reason to cheer. This was the strongest message yet sent to existing and would be terrorists. Come boys and girls, in Europe we will not only not scan you at airports but we will also not let anyone find out where you get your money from and where it all goes. You are safe with us, after all, our privacy and human rights are more important than our security.
Privacy and human rights are of course important, those things are the basis of our way of life.
But when self proclaimed protectors of these values make a fuss about the need to send personal data of passengers, protest the use of body scanners and other technologies and would rather have billions of the bad guys’ money go through our banking system unobserved, then they are not serving our values, they are being short sighted and guilty of a silo mentality.
I would really like to know how any of those smiling parliamentarians would react if they came face to face with a real terrorist, nicely fitted with an explosives belt and finger on the detonator… Would they feel inner satisfaction at the knowledge that although in a few minutes rescue workers will be scraping them from the pavement, their privacy was never invaded…
This vote in the EU Parliament was also a slap on the face of the victims of 9/11, Madrid, London and the future attacks which have just been made a bit easier.
What relationship does this have with aviation? Well, the longer this short sighted silo mentality is allowed to persist, the more difficult it will be to implement effective technologies and processes to screen passengers on the one hand and to rein in terrorists on the other. If the aviation travel experience continues to deteriorate, if security slips become more common, if a single attack succeeds, the industry will suffer with untold damage to lives and the world economy.
Keep this in mind, ladies and gentlemen of the European Parliament, the next time you board a plane: saying NAY in parliament is easy and, thanks to you, triggering a detonator has just become even easier!
Just a friendly reminder: several million people in Europe did vote, and the European Parliament is a representation of these voters.
Apparently, sufficient people think privacy is just as much a right they have as safety, and they do not blindly vote for regimes to take away their privacy at all costs.
This kind of freedom may be what Europe is about, and giving it up would be a true surrender to terrorism.
Jeroen
The point here is slightly different. When the cheers went up in parliament, they were happy for having defeated something they did noit like. But instead of cheering, they should have made sure that an alternative solution is found like immediately… The bad guys will not wait until things are soted out at the usual glacial pace.
Apparently, Europeans feel so removed from the problem of terrorism that they feel they can afford to play this game. London and Madrid are apparently already fading in peoples’ memories.
Privacy is important but so is not loosing a loved one in an attack.
It is much better to give up even a lot of privacy while a better solution is found than to see your wife or kid go down in flames albeit with her provacy fully protected.
It is time people sorted out their perspective… They might just find that their current priorities are off by a thousand miles.