EFF, along with the Center for Democracy and Technology and others, have created a "Myths v. Facts" sheet about one of the main laws used to spy on innocent, unrelated, users: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The document is a response to the United States Intelligence Community's derision of the recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision.
The decision is hugely important. Last month, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided that United States companies can no longer be automatically trusted with the personal data of Europeans. Since 1998, the United States and the EU agreed to a “safe harbor” framework which allowed signatory U.S. companies to transfer data across the Atlantic as long as they comply with a set of privacy principles. The court, by declaring invalid the safe harbor which currently permits a sizeable amount of the commercial movement of personal data between the EU and the U.S., has signaled that PRISM and other government surveillance undermine the privacy rights that regulates data movements under European law.
The Myths v. Facts sheet is a document explaining key facts and misperceptions of Section 702. The pdf and full text can be found below:
