The U.S. needs to implement and enforce its commitment to...

Representative Ron Kirk and U.S.-EU Ambassador William Kennard in a letter dated Monday (http://xrl.us/boes3e). Signatories include the ACLU, the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and U.S. PIRG. Users face the threats of “identity theft, security breaches, government surveillance, and secretive, discriminatory profiling” as their data are “abused by both the commercial sector and governments,” advocates wrote. The line between companies and government entities “is increasingly blurred as personal data passes between both with few restrictions,” the groups said. To combat these threats, the EU is working to “update and modernize their framework for privacy protections,” including considering “Data Protection Regulation and a Directive on Law Enforcement,” which would strengthen protections for user data against governmental access, the letter said: These efforts are met by “an unprecedented lobbying campaign” by the U.S. government and industry members “to limit the protections that European law would provide.” Instead, the U.S. should be making good on its commitment to protect user privacy, as outlined in President Barack Obama’s Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, advocates said. The principles outlined in Obama’s proposal -- echoed in the EU’s privacy initiatives -- “must be given legal force,” or the document “will become a hollow promise,” the letter said. The advocates suggested that Congress update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to more strongly protect user data from government access, which “would be a good start for the strengthening of US law and policy to bring us into compliance with International Human Rights norms."