WASHINGTON — Today, the White House released a much anticipated Executive Order intended to address major issues with surveillance conducted by the United States that the Court of Justice of the European Union identified in 2020 when striking down the Privacy Shield data sharing agreement.
The following statement can be attributed to Sean Vitka, senior policy counsel for Demand Progress:
“The White House’s Executive Order fails to put in place the meaningful reforms necessary to protect privacy on both sides of the Atlantic and should be rejected as insufficient. The EO expressly provides for bulk surveillance, guaranteeing entirely innocent people will be harmed. It does not provide meaningful redress for people who have been wrongfully spied upon, including by failing to require government notice to them. And the EO can be changed by the administration at will. The White House has failed to grapple meaningfully with the privacy questions at the heart of this issue. Congress must act where the administration has not.”