"Some commentators have suggested that the EU could rewrite the Right to Be Forgotten directives to permit global delisting."

Them Europeans have a hard time with free speech. Still, the

European Court’s Decision in Right To Be Forgotten Case is a Win for Free Speech,

sort of.

In a significant victory for free speech rights, the European Union’s highest court ruled that the EU’s Right to Be Forgotten does not require Google to delist search results globally, thus keeping the results available to be seen by users around the world.

The EU standard, established in 2014, lets individuals in member states demand that search engines not show search results containing old information about them when their privacy rights outweigh the public’s interest in having continued access to the information. The question before the court was whether Google had to remove the results from all Google search platforms, including Google.com, or just the ones identified with either the individual’s state of residence, in this case Google.fr, or ones identified with the EU as a whole.

...

EFF joined Article 19 and other global free speech groups in urging the Court of Justice to reach this decision and overturn a ruling by CNIL. As the brief explained, a global delisting order would conflict with the rights of users in other nations, including U.S. users protected by First Amendment. U.S. courts have consistently held that the First Amendment’s protections for expression, petition, and assembly necessarily also protect the rights of individuals to gather information to fuel those expressions, petitions, and assemblies.

As we explained in the brief:

"In the United States, a right to de-reference publicly available information on data protection grounds would be unconstitutional: the First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right of people to publish information on matters of public interest that they acquire legally, even in the face of significant interests relating to the private life of those involved (Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co. 443 US 97 (1979)). This reasoning extends to those situations where there is a significant governmental interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the information in question (Oklahoma Pub. Co. v. Distr. Court 430 US 308 (1977), where the information concerns judicial procedures (Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia 435 US 829 (1978) and even where the publisher of the information knows that her or his source obtained the information illegally (Bartnicki v. Vopper 532 US 514 (2001). The First Amendment also guarantees the right to receive information, including by means of a search engine (see e.g. Langdon v. Google 474 F. Supp. 2d 622 (D. Del. 2007)). . . .  The incompatibility of broad de-referencing obligations with US law is especially relevant in the present case given that all major search providers are established in the US…" 

The Europeans being Europeans might still reconsider.

In a passage that has left commentators scratching their heads, the court emphasized that even though the Right to be Forgotten “does not currently require” delisting from all versions of Google’s search engine, EU law “does not prohibit such a practice.” The court said an authority in an EU member state may balance an individual’s right to privacy and the freedom of information and, “where appropriate,” order the operator of a search engine to delist search results from all of its versions.

More here 

And another well-deserved kick in the ass of Merkel: Data retention unlawful, regards from your Court of Justice of the European Union.

Angela Merkel, what do you not
understand about Just Go?

She keeps on fucking up. Da babe from the DDR. Mutti, Plunse. This decision right after the Berlin Attack. Any person with a minimum sense of style and dignity would step down and fuck off into the sunset. Not this clumsy Mädchen.

The way of the German privacy warrior

Former justice minister doesn’t buy the liberty vs. security argument.

TUTZING, Germany — Few German politicians know the country’s ambiguous relationship with state surveillance better than former justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.

The 64-year-old can claim a role in bringing down three major laws in her career to protect citizen’s rights, learning the lessons from bitter battles at home, against the conservative interior ministry, and in Brussels, against current European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström.

Now, she’s suiting up again to topple Germany’s latest data-retention law, passed last November, which requires phone and Internet providers to store call records, IP addresses and other identification records, without any suspicion of wrongdoing by users.

Privacy, a human right that is insidiously undermined by this new law,” she says during an interview. “I can’t just sit here and watch that. This is why I will do everything I can do to topple it.”

She can relax now.

Victory! EU court rules that indiscriminate data retention is not permissible

Brussels, BE — Earlier today, Thomas von Danwitz, Judge Rapporteur of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), issued his judgment on the joint data retention cases known as Tele2 Sverige and Davis and Others. The outcome: EU member states may not impose a general obligation to retain data on providers of electronic communications services, and when law enforcement has access to retained data, they must ensure independent oversight mechanisms and remedy. This is a critically important victory for fundamental rights in the EU.

“This ruling reaffirms that existing general data retention schemes are not proportionate”, said Fanny Hidvegi, European Policy Manager at Access Now. “Member states are skirting an increasing amount of responsibility under various exceptions, be it ‘national security’ or ‘legitimate interest’. Access Now is pleased that the court did not embrace the false dichotomy of privacy versus security, and once again enforced the proper standards and explicit safeguards for fundamental rights. Judges engaged in ongoing cases all around Europe should follow the clear lines the court has drawn today against general data retention”.

Full article here