The Transatlantic Data War: Europe Fights Back against the NSA – with Abraham Newman

Last October, the European Court of Justice struck down the Safe Harbor agreement, a 15-year-old transatlantic arrangement that permitted U.S. companies to transfer data, such as people’s Google-search histories, outside the EU. In invalidating the agreement, the ECJ found that the blurry relationship between private-sector data collection and national security in the United States violates the privacy rights of EU citizens whose data travel overseas. The decision leaves U.S. technology companies with extensive international operations on shaky legal ground.

Although some informed American observers anticipated the decision, most were caught flat-footed; some seemed downright bewildered. Myron Brilliant,

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “The Transatlantic Data War: Europe Fights Back against the NSA,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 2016).

Access the full article here.

Other Writing:

Academic Article

Introduction: Blogs, Politics and Power – with Daniel W. Drezner

There is good reason to believe that blogs are changing politics, but we don’t know exactly how. Nor do we know whether the normative consequences of blogs for poli- tics are likely to be good or bad. In this special issue, we and our co-authors undertake the first sustained effort to map the empirical and ...
Read Article
Chapter in an Edited Volume

“Transnational Actors and the Transatlantic Relationship in E-Commerce” in The Negotiation of the Safe Harbor Arrangement, Creating a Transatlantic Marketplace – ed. Michelle Egan

In the recent past, scholars have sought better to understand the evolving EU-US relationship, both in its own right, and as an important example of emerging forms of international governance.1 Particular attention has been paid to the important role that transnational actors have begun to play in this relationship. Business, consumer, labour and environmental interests ...
Read Article