Edward Snowden Says EU Courts Have Held Data-Sharing Pacts With US Unlawful Repeatedly Since He Blew The Whistle: 'Can't Get Away With It'

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Edward Snowden has hit out against “data sharing agreements” between the United States and the European Union in a post on Twitter.

What Happened: The former U.S. security contractor who blew the whistle on National Security Agency's mass surveillance said the EU’s top court has “repeatedly ruled that the ‘data-sharing agreements’” are “unlawful end-runs around our human rights.”

In the Twitter thread, Snowden shared a meme from “Breaking Bad” featuring the character Jesse Pinkman. The meme read, “He can’t keep getting away with it.”

Why It Matters: Snowden shared a Politico report on Sunday, which said, citing people familiar with the matter, that the White House is expected to publish an executive order on transatlantic data transfers next week.

Once the order is made public it will lead to a ratification process from the European Commission that is reportedly expected to take as long as six months.

Negotiations for the agreement began in 2020 after judges in the EU unraveled the so-called Privacy Shield citing worries that it failed sufficiently to protect Europeans from U.S. surveillance, reported Politico.

Details aren’t available on the contents of the upcoming order but people involved in talks said that new legal protections will be given to both European and American citizens with regard to data usage by U.S. security agencies, according to the report.

Snowden, who fled prosecution after leaking information from NSA in 2013, was given Russian citizenship last week.

Read Next: Edward Snowden, Now A Russian Citizen, Yearns For Family Stability After '10 Years Of Exile'

Photo courtesy: Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia

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