The European Parliament is planning to hold a video conference with fugitive NSA analyst, Edward Snowden, concerning the US spying on European citizens, a source in the Assembly told RIA Novosti on Friday. The hearing will be before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) via a video link during one of the upcoming meetings on the surveillance scandal, said Albrecht, the committee’s rapporteur on the current proposal to update data protection rules.
A German member of the European Parliament, Jan Philipp Albrecht, said on Thursday that Snowden (pictured) would be appearing by videolink at a session of the assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs. “It’s a great success for the European parliament that Edward Snowden has already agreed to testify publicly as a key witness in the surveillance scandal,” said Albrecht. “Half a year after the first publications from his collection of numerous NSA documents, the truth of which has not so far been refuted, there are still consequences as far as political responsibility is concerned”. The European Parliament’s Green Group was the first to call for Snowden to testify before the Committee on Legal Affairs. It was a Green resolution that was adopted by the parliament on a cross-party basis in July this year, to investigate the surveillance scandal. The German government in November said it was looking into the feasibility of Snowden being questioned in Russia over the NSA affair, which surfaced last June with the publication of reports based on
documents provided by Snowden. Speaking after talks with EU leaders, Chancellor Merkel said she wanted action not just apologies from US President Barack Obama, following revelations that the US National Security Agency had accessed tens of thousands of French phone records and monitored
Merkel’s private mobile phone. Germany and France will seek a “mutual understanding” with the United States on cooperation between their intelligence agencies, and other EU member states could eventually take part. – Eurasia Review
