So, this isn’t a political blog by any means, but I’ve come across this news story in a few places today and… well… sorry, what?

Surely we should be getting a little more agitated that the EU is allowing the US unprecedented access to personal information of transatlantic, European passengers? Hunting around the internet, I discover that up till now, the US Department of Home Security has been allowed access to 34 pieces of information on EU passengers (first time I’d heard that), but this agreement had to be reassessed because, who’d have thought it, it wasn’t legal . So now, they get 19 pieces of information on people but they can keep it for 15 years and do… pretty much anything they like with it. This information seems to include not only credit card and bank details but also sexual orientation (as part of a disease control plan apparently… wait, what?) and what you ate on the flight. No one trusts vegetarians any more, apparently.

Call me old fashioned, but surely we should be a little more… outraged? The EU is, as I understand it, legally obliged to protect the privacy of EU citizens… yet is allowing the States access to information on a scale which would be illegal in Europe…

I mean… am I missing something? What on Earth is going on?