Germany Wants NSA Corporate Puppets Banned from European Union

Among the revelations from the NSA data mining scandal have been the identities of companies that aided and abetted the effort.

Germany's justice minister is calling for the EU to adopt tough rules on data protection and a ban on American companies found playing footsie with the National Security Agency.

With the NSA spying scandal continuing to make headlines in Europe, the German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, has raised the possibility of new, tangible measures to punish corporations that participate in American spying activities. In an interview with Die Welt, the liberal Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called for the creation of EU-wide rules to regulate the protection of information, and said that, once those rules are in place, "United States companies that don't abide by these standards should be denied doing business in the European market."

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said that a package of EU measures is required in order to fight "the widespread spying of foreign spy services" and that German data protection laws should be a yardstick for the rest of the European Union -- German privacy laws are considerably tighter than those of the United States and much of Europe. 

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich also raised corporate accountability in July, when he suggested requiring European firms to report any data they hand over to foreign countries. 

I'm sure this will inspire Harper to stand up on his hind legs on behalf of Canadians and our right to privacy.  No, never mind, forget it.