Last week I asked people to write to their MEPs about two important votes in the European Parliament on Wednesday: one regarding data protection, the other surveillance. Lots of people obviously did that, and not just here in the UK: both votes went through with huge majorities. That’s not to say that the results are perfect, but they are probably as good as we could have hoped for in the circumstances, and represent a real win for democracy in Europe given the bitter lobbying that was deployed against them. […]
However, the European Parliament is quite able to withhold its consent to TAFTA/TTIP – after all, that’s precisely what happened with ACTA, which died on the day that MEPs voted against it (actually, it’s more of a zombie: not dead outside the EU, but not very alive either…) A lot depends on what happens in the next twelve months in terms of how NSA and GCHQ spying is reined in (if at all), and whether data protection is included in TTIP. […]
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2014/03/data-protection-surveillance-votes-won-net-neutrality-next/index.htm