Snowden has said he would return to the U.S.to face charges if he is guaranteed a fair trial.
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A press release from the European Parliament confirmed the vote count, announcing that Members of the European Parliament (MEP) had voted to call upon member-states to “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and global human rights defender”.
The vote in the parliament may be significant in statute, but it is not legally binding. There has been talk of Snowden eventually getting asylum in Europe but the reaction to that has been mixed, it appears that for the time being he’ll have to bear with his accommodations in the Russian capital.
The former NSA contractor has been living in exile in Moscow since June 2013, having fled there from Hong Kong.
“This is not a blow against the US Government, but an open hand extended by friends”, Snowden tweeted after the European vote. Declaring Snowden a whistleblower and protecting him against bogus legal threats and extradition would be a really huge step forward.
The European Court of Justice said the “Safe Harbor” accord between the United States and the European Commission was invalid because it did not guarantee protection of Europeans’ personal data.
Calls were also made to ensure that an “effective level of protection” was applied to data transferred between Europe and the US. It invites the Commission to reflect immediately on alternatives to Safe Harbour and on the “impact of the judgment on any other instruments for the transfer of personal data to the United States, and to report on the matter by the end of 2015”.
The collaboration between the German intelligence body BDE with its USA counterpart, the National Security Agency, was cited an example that citizens’ interests are not taken into account.
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This is also meant to push member states such as France to rethink their new surveillance laws, and push them to act against mass surveillance.
