US Intelligence Committee Chair To EU Parliament: NSA Necessary To Jointly Fight China

By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch

Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, today defended the work of the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies in the US at a meeting with members of the European Parliament, and called for a united front against the theft of intellectual property by China.

The US is advanced with regard to the security services and there were misunderstandings about the meaning of mass surveillance, Rogers, a Michigan Republican, said. Given the existing checks and balances of security activities in the US, he said, “structures are ok, we can work on transparency.”

While touching on the joint security interests between the US and the EU, Rogers also underlined the need for the US and the EU to jointly fend off the theft of intellectual property and blueprints pointing to China as a major threat.

“We have no united front against industrial espionage from China,” he said.

Rogers pointed to the need to include the issue of data flows in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The debate about including data privacy and data flows in the TTIP is controversial. EU Commissioner Viviane Reding recently said there is no need for negotiations about data privacy, as it is a standing fundamental right.

In the TTIP negotiation this week in Washington, DC, according to several tweets by the EU Commission, “rules on food and agricultural products,” as well as “a wide range of topics” was discussed on day one of the third negotiation round.

The European Parliament’s inquiry on the Snowden revelations will present their draft recommendations tomorrow, and they also include recommendations with regard to trade-related cooperation like the safe harbour agreement preventing internet intermediary liability.