Give us those data

摘要

The judges said they were ruling on a technicality only, but emotion lurked in the background. On May 30th, the European Court of Justice deemed illegal a deal under which European airlines give the American authorities personal data on airline passengers flying to the United States. These arrangements began in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, when America's security agencies sought, and duly obtained, more information from Europe's airlines about who was flying into their airspace. It took a while for European law to catch up with reality. The transfer of passenger data between European capitals and Washington was not authorised by eu law till May 2004.