Snowden hails EU for quashing transatlantic data deal
Edward Snowden
(MOSCOW) - America's most-wanted whistleblower Edward Snowden on Tuesday hailed the EU's top court's decision to strike down a transatlantic data deal used by companies like Facebook to send citizens' personal data to the US.
Europe's Court of Justice on Tuesday found that the "Safe Harbor" agreement which the United States and European Commission reached in 2000 did not sufficiently guarantee the protection of Europeans' personal data.
"Europe's high court just struck down a major law routinely abused for surveillance," Snowden, the computer expert who was granted asylum in Russia after exposing mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
"We are all safer as a result."
"This is the second time in as many years the world has relied upon #CJEU (the Court of Justice of the European Union) to defend digital rights. Thank you Europe," he wrote.
Snowden also publicly congratulated Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems, who prompted the ruling by challenging the Irish authorities over user data transferred to the US from Facebook's European base in Ireland, saying he changed the world "for the better."
Snowden, who has been living in exile in Russia since June 2013, is wanted in the US for leaking NSA classified information on global surveillance programmes.
The US government has charged him with espionage and theft of government property, crimes for which he could be imprisoned for 30 years if found guilty.
The former intelligence contractor opened a Twitter account last week and is followed by 1.38 million people.
Snowden said the ruling "indicates that the indiscriminate interception of communications is a violation of rights."