The US and UK have an agreement whereby they both basically agree not to spy on one another and to share intelligence (the UKUSA Agreement), which they both appear to be abiding by, based on the leaks so far.

The Post/Guardian articles didn't claim that PRISM was being used officially to spy on Americans. They pointed out that its stated purpose was to spy on people thought to be foreign (probability of 0.51 or greater that the target is not a US citizen), and mentioned that some American citizens get spied upon "incidentally" and that this data is supposed to be removed - but also that it's not considered a big deal if American citizens are spied upon.

Additionally some of the communications of foreign targets can involve a US citizen, even if they're not the target of the spying.

Remember also that the intelligence community uses its own private definitions which make it easier to misdirect the public.

I would have hoped that "deleted" meant "deleted". How naïve of me.

If you don't want to have your iPhone stolen stop using it in public.

Great.

The European Commission do indeed do lots of stupid things but I think anything aimed at giving users greater privacy and control over their personal information is a good thing.

Er... no. EU powers, including in the area of data protection, do not just apply to businesses.

"I would counter by noting that any argument that uses a Hitler analogy is self-refuting."

This is stated as though it is a truism when it is not, his argument at this point can be summed up as "once we ignore some of the best reasons to be in favor of privacy, there's no real reason to want privacy".

The basic premise of his post is "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" - a pretty weak argument.

Keeping the personal information of those who choose to come to the US is bad enough, I'm pissed off that my country's government has agreed to a deal which means "exchanging data, including DNA and fingerprint records, and in some cases details of individuals' political and religious beliefs and sexual orientation - even on people not planning to travel to the US".

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2008/1118/1226961467105.html

It seems that other countries have agreed to it too.

I realise their justification is primarily to facilitate business travellers but I wish they would just show some courage and for once say no to the US government's demands, they have no right to this data.