Here's Why The EU Is Crazy Not To Insist On Full Transparency During TAFTA/TTIP

from the information-asymmetry dept

One of the most recent Snowden stories has garnered relatively little attention, perhaps because it appeared (in English) on the Danish site Information.dk: At the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, the world's nations were supposed to reach an agreement that would protect future generations against catastrophic climate change. But not everyone was playing by the rules. A leaked document now reveals that the US employed the NSA, its signals intelligence agency, to intercept information about other countries' views on the climate negotiations before and during the summit. According to observers, the spying may have contributed to the Americans getting their way in the negotiations As the report on Information.dk explains, the US was able to use inside knowledge of the negotiating positions of other countries to strengthen its bargaining position. Indeed, it didn't bother bargaining at all, since it learned that there was a "final" proposal being held in reserve to reach an agreement that would give it pretty much what it wanted. It knew that it only had to wait.

It's a great story, and well-worth reading, but here I want to concentrate on its implications for another major agreement, currently being negotiated: TAFTA/TTIP. On the one side is the US, on the other, the 28 nations that go to make up the European Union. Because they have differing views on the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations, it's necessary to pass around many documents conveying information about the current negotiations, and seek to obtain some kind of consensus on future EU proposals and flexibilities.

In the wake of Snowden's revelations, security will doubtless be much better than during the Copenhagen Summit, when supposedly secret messages were sent using unencrypted emails. But it only needs one weak link in the European Union's security chain -- somebody who forgets to encrypt his or her message, or who leaves it on a system that has been compromised -- and the NSA will be able to access that information, and pass it on to the US negotiators, just as it did in Copenhagen.

The key point is that there is a profound information asymmetry in the TAFTA/TTIP talks. Although the spy agencies of the EU countries will doubtless be trying their best to obtain confidential information about US negotiating tactics, it will be much harder than it is for the US to do the same about EU positions. That's because the NSA is far larger, and far more expert than the EU agencies. GCHQ is probably the nearest in terms of capabilities, but is so closely allied with the NSA in other areas that it probably won't be trying too hard so as not to annoy its paymaster.

This more or less guarantees that the US will know everything about the EU's negotiating plans during TAFTA/TTIP, while the EU will remain in the dark about the US intentions. That not only undercuts the European Commission's argument that releasing documents is not possible because they must remain secret during the negotiations -- they won't be -- it also gives the EU a huge incentive to insist on full transparency for the talks. That way, the EU negotiators would be able to see at least some US documents that currently are hidden from them, whereas the US would gain little that it didn't already know through more dubious means.

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Filed Under: eu, nsa, secrecy, surveillance, tafta, trade negotiations, transparency, ttip