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Of Privacy and Power Lib/E: The Transatlantic Struggle Over Freedom and Security
We live in an interconnected world, where security problems like terrorism are spilling across borders, and globalized data networks and e-commerce platforms are reshaping the world economy. This means that states' jurisdictions and rule systems clash. How have they negotiated their differences over freedom and security? Of Privacy and Power investigates how the European Union and United States, the two major regulatory systems in world politics, have regulated privacy and security, and how their agreements and disputes have reshaped the transatlantic relationship.
The transatlantic struggle over freedom and security has usually been depicted as a clash between a peace-loving European Union and a belligerent United States. Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman demonstrate how this misses the point. The real dispute was between two transnational coalitions - one favoring security, the other liberty - whose struggles have reshaped the politics of surveillance, e-commerce, and privacy rights. Looking at three large security debates in the period since 9/11, the authors examine how the powers of border-spanning coalitions have waxed and waned. Globalization has enabled new strategies of action, which security agencies, interior ministries, privacy NGOs, bureaucrats, and other actors exploit as circumstances dictate.
The transatlantic struggle over freedom and security has usually been depicted as a clash between a peace-loving European Union and a belligerent United States. Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman demonstrate how this misses the point. The real dispute was between two transnational coalitions - one favoring security, the other liberty - whose struggles have reshaped the politics of surveillance, e-commerce, and privacy rights. Looking at three large security debates in the period since 9/11, the authors examine how the powers of border-spanning coalitions have waxed and waned. Globalization has enabled new strategies of action, which security agencies, interior ministries, privacy NGOs, bureaucrats, and other actors exploit as circumstances dictate.
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Published April 2, 2019
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About the author
Henry Farrell
9 books36 followersHenry Farrell is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs at SAIS, and 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology. Previously, he served as a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He works on a variety of topics, including democracy, the politics of the internet, and international and comparative political economy. He is author of Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Fight over Freedom and Security (with Abraham Newman, 2019) and The Political Economy of Trust: Interests, Institutions and Inter-Firm Cooperation (2009).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 26, 2019
Preface was very important in outlining and summarizing pretty much everything that the remaining of the book will cover.
Chapter 1 lays the theoretical framework behind the authors’ new theory of international relations. They claim that although the idea has been presented before in the IR literature (such as in Joseph S. Nye’s work), no one ever fully theorized the fact that the world must no longer be examined from a state-level approach anymore, but rather from a multilevel standpoint. Globalization has brought an unprecedented interdependence among not only state governments, but also other intra and supranational actors such a civil rights movements, academic institutions, NGOs, corporations, the UN, and several important government entities inside a country, such as interior ministries, parliaments and other relevant participants. The main point on the foundation of Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman’s theory is that the state does not have monopoly over diplomacy anymore. Their theory, entitled New Interdependence Approach (NIA), is based on a few key fundamental ideas:
1. Rule overlap
- As national markets become interpenetrated, rules of each country overlaps with other countries as the intersocietal actors are interdependent and it is mainly these actors that bargain and negotiate these regulations inside and across their original jurisdiction. In other words, rules inside a country affect states, people, and companies from other countries because they are connected through globalization -> perfect example is GDPR
2. Opportunity structure
- Each actor’s leverage and influence is deeply dependent on how much access it has to transnational forms, which naturally creates an asymmetry of power. Asymmetries existed in model before, but NIA introduces the other participants in these power differences
3. Insulation
- Those actors against a certain world movement tends to adopt anti-transnational forms to maintain the national rule against a cross national posture -> European civil liberties actors against US’s imposition of post-9/11 thorough surveillance in order to preserve safety
Chapter 2 explains how dynamics pre-9/11 worked in the US, in the EU and US-EU privacy collaboration efforts. And then it analyzes the post-9/11 dynamics. The transatlantic policing efforts to combat worldwide menaces and/or help collaboration among nations was very limited on the pre-9/11 era. The only significant and worth mentioning agency is Interpol, which was indeed a form of international intelligence sharing, but really limited to specific cases and data when necessary. Within the US, they had the CIA, the NSA and the FBI as central actors of intelligence. However, their role was mostly national (although the authors fail to observe the length and depth of CIA’s involvements during the Cold War period) and they did not cooperate so much among themselves. It is not different for the European Union: they had few intelligence and investigation treaties and groups like TREVI Group, Europol, Eurojust, but still very limited, much more than the US. After the terrorist attack in 2001, the United States began making really strong requisitions from a Europe to assure more security enforcement. The US realized that it wasn’t only states that could cause such harm, but also a non-state actor that needed to be watched. The EU has historically adopted a more privacy-focused emphasis rather than security. The transatlantic struggle and haggle between the two economic giants was moderated not by the states alone, but by a combination of actors with beliefs, interests and influences that vary enormously among them.
Chapter 3 does the same as chapter 2, except that it takes a particular study case of privacy: airline passenger data. - CAPS2 was the result of the first controversial set of rules from an all-sided bargaining and compromising. The second and improved set of rules was Safe Flight. Although the US, which has always prioritized security over privacy, pressured the EU (much more privacy concerned) heavily, it did not manage to get as much data collection inside the own security-oriented territory, proving the point that states are no longer alone in the setting of regulations. The EU, on the other hand, was ironically more cooperative, another proof that multiple actors inside and outside a jurisdiction exerce much more influence than most scholars take into consideration.
Chapter 4 - SWIFT - Financial data - Still analyzing the post-9/11 effects, the US tried to collect financial data from its European counterparts to track possible terrorist activity/financing, but such data collection was illegal in Europe. Still, they influenced Europe to pass laws allowing (in a coercive manner, initially through SWIFT “cooperation” under threat of restraining their market in the US) to a certain extent of financial data collection and distribution. However, the privacy worried European Union ended up making their own laws which were way different from what they were cooperating with the US, showing the force of internal actors over state actors. All dominant theoretical frameworks fail to explain such a thing as there was no shift in power or dominance, both retained global market power.
Chapter 5 - Snowden’s leaks
- Safe Harbor (2000) were a bunch of principles developed to protect the European 1995 Data Protection Directive while collaborating in data sharing with the United States - privacy rules of data collection and exchange, firms could block flows unilaterally if each part thought it wasn’t working. FDC supervised it
- It was operated, though with critics, throughout the 2000s but with the belief that it had to be reformed and updated. The complaints were around how much of data exchange was for commercial use of companies and how much was being taken advantage by governments. It was unclear on some topics about how the cooperation should be regulated especially regarding FDC jurisdiction
- An alternative needed law enforcement (but it had different meanings for US and EU), leading to heated debates. Replacement talks started in March 2011 to create a barrier between commercial and government use - new privacy and law enforcement rules
- Snowden’s 2013 revelations showed EU interest in keeping data privacy and the US interest in mass surveillance on non-US citizens - grave violations to Safe Harbor, but the EU realized that the SHA was being used as a conduit for American government’s use of the data shared, and only revocation would halt this -> revelations brought a huge obstacle to serious negotiations with the US
- SHA was inherently flawed, European Court of Justice concluded, and so a new agreement in 2016 (Privacy Shield and Umbrella Agreement) was reached but it didn’t change much - main difference was a larger role that European citizens had in their data collection options - the transatlantic relationship still necessitates a new longer term solution.
The book’s conclusion shows a more opined side of the authors’ ideas. I pretty much agree with them in everything: data must be treated with careful attention, privacy must not be violated, but it has to be used to keep us safe and improve our lives. India’s Aadhaar is a good example, but we have to be careful with bad examples such as Cambridge Analytica and the Chinese authoritarian government using massive surveillance to create a social credit score system and to monitor/watch citizens behaviors so as to silence dissidence. But it has to be analyzed and researched from this new perspective, not from the old squared one that limits our comprehension of today’s complicated power dynamics.
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would, because it focuses on the new theoretical approach to international relations, but I would love to see their work on the privacy and data collection ideas and exploration.
Chapter 1 lays the theoretical framework behind the authors’ new theory of international relations. They claim that although the idea has been presented before in the IR literature (such as in Joseph S. Nye’s work), no one ever fully theorized the fact that the world must no longer be examined from a state-level approach anymore, but rather from a multilevel standpoint. Globalization has brought an unprecedented interdependence among not only state governments, but also other intra and supranational actors such a civil rights movements, academic institutions, NGOs, corporations, the UN, and several important government entities inside a country, such as interior ministries, parliaments and other relevant participants. The main point on the foundation of Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman’s theory is that the state does not have monopoly over diplomacy anymore. Their theory, entitled New Interdependence Approach (NIA), is based on a few key fundamental ideas:
1. Rule overlap
- As national markets become interpenetrated, rules of each country overlaps with other countries as the intersocietal actors are interdependent and it is mainly these actors that bargain and negotiate these regulations inside and across their original jurisdiction. In other words, rules inside a country affect states, people, and companies from other countries because they are connected through globalization -> perfect example is GDPR
2. Opportunity structure
- Each actor’s leverage and influence is deeply dependent on how much access it has to transnational forms, which naturally creates an asymmetry of power. Asymmetries existed in model before, but NIA introduces the other participants in these power differences
3. Insulation
- Those actors against a certain world movement tends to adopt anti-transnational forms to maintain the national rule against a cross national posture -> European civil liberties actors against US’s imposition of post-9/11 thorough surveillance in order to preserve safety
Chapter 2 explains how dynamics pre-9/11 worked in the US, in the EU and US-EU privacy collaboration efforts. And then it analyzes the post-9/11 dynamics. The transatlantic policing efforts to combat worldwide menaces and/or help collaboration among nations was very limited on the pre-9/11 era. The only significant and worth mentioning agency is Interpol, which was indeed a form of international intelligence sharing, but really limited to specific cases and data when necessary. Within the US, they had the CIA, the NSA and the FBI as central actors of intelligence. However, their role was mostly national (although the authors fail to observe the length and depth of CIA’s involvements during the Cold War period) and they did not cooperate so much among themselves. It is not different for the European Union: they had few intelligence and investigation treaties and groups like TREVI Group, Europol, Eurojust, but still very limited, much more than the US. After the terrorist attack in 2001, the United States began making really strong requisitions from a Europe to assure more security enforcement. The US realized that it wasn’t only states that could cause such harm, but also a non-state actor that needed to be watched. The EU has historically adopted a more privacy-focused emphasis rather than security. The transatlantic struggle and haggle between the two economic giants was moderated not by the states alone, but by a combination of actors with beliefs, interests and influences that vary enormously among them.
Chapter 3 does the same as chapter 2, except that it takes a particular study case of privacy: airline passenger data. - CAPS2 was the result of the first controversial set of rules from an all-sided bargaining and compromising. The second and improved set of rules was Safe Flight. Although the US, which has always prioritized security over privacy, pressured the EU (much more privacy concerned) heavily, it did not manage to get as much data collection inside the own security-oriented territory, proving the point that states are no longer alone in the setting of regulations. The EU, on the other hand, was ironically more cooperative, another proof that multiple actors inside and outside a jurisdiction exerce much more influence than most scholars take into consideration.
Chapter 4 - SWIFT - Financial data - Still analyzing the post-9/11 effects, the US tried to collect financial data from its European counterparts to track possible terrorist activity/financing, but such data collection was illegal in Europe. Still, they influenced Europe to pass laws allowing (in a coercive manner, initially through SWIFT “cooperation” under threat of restraining their market in the US) to a certain extent of financial data collection and distribution. However, the privacy worried European Union ended up making their own laws which were way different from what they were cooperating with the US, showing the force of internal actors over state actors. All dominant theoretical frameworks fail to explain such a thing as there was no shift in power or dominance, both retained global market power.
Chapter 5 - Snowden’s leaks
- Safe Harbor (2000) were a bunch of principles developed to protect the European 1995 Data Protection Directive while collaborating in data sharing with the United States - privacy rules of data collection and exchange, firms could block flows unilaterally if each part thought it wasn’t working. FDC supervised it
- It was operated, though with critics, throughout the 2000s but with the belief that it had to be reformed and updated. The complaints were around how much of data exchange was for commercial use of companies and how much was being taken advantage by governments. It was unclear on some topics about how the cooperation should be regulated especially regarding FDC jurisdiction
- An alternative needed law enforcement (but it had different meanings for US and EU), leading to heated debates. Replacement talks started in March 2011 to create a barrier between commercial and government use - new privacy and law enforcement rules
- Snowden’s 2013 revelations showed EU interest in keeping data privacy and the US interest in mass surveillance on non-US citizens - grave violations to Safe Harbor, but the EU realized that the SHA was being used as a conduit for American government’s use of the data shared, and only revocation would halt this -> revelations brought a huge obstacle to serious negotiations with the US
- SHA was inherently flawed, European Court of Justice concluded, and so a new agreement in 2016 (Privacy Shield and Umbrella Agreement) was reached but it didn’t change much - main difference was a larger role that European citizens had in their data collection options - the transatlantic relationship still necessitates a new longer term solution.
The book’s conclusion shows a more opined side of the authors’ ideas. I pretty much agree with them in everything: data must be treated with careful attention, privacy must not be violated, but it has to be used to keep us safe and improve our lives. India’s Aadhaar is a good example, but we have to be careful with bad examples such as Cambridge Analytica and the Chinese authoritarian government using massive surveillance to create a social credit score system and to monitor/watch citizens behaviors so as to silence dissidence. But it has to be analyzed and researched from this new perspective, not from the old squared one that limits our comprehension of today’s complicated power dynamics.
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would, because it focuses on the new theoretical approach to international relations, but I would love to see their work on the privacy and data collection ideas and exploration.
December 23, 2019
Best thing: It is short.
Good to read about SWIFT, PNR and Safe Harbor. Next time: spend more energy on the subject matter and MUCH less time on this supposedly new theory of understanding power in international politics, which is - for a sensible normal adult like myself - banal and almost sweet in a childish sort of way: So you figured out, that people on all levels - from heads of state to menial officials - talk to each other across borders and that also private companies can play a role in politics? Wauw..
And: Please do not write all the time, what you are going to write and also write, what you have just written. It is maddening.
I think I will invite the professors to the next meeting in my apartment building with all the tenants, so they can catch a glimpse of real people doing a bit of politics.. it will astonish the gentlemen I am sure.
Good to read about SWIFT, PNR and Safe Harbor. Next time: spend more energy on the subject matter and MUCH less time on this supposedly new theory of understanding power in international politics, which is - for a sensible normal adult like myself - banal and almost sweet in a childish sort of way: So you figured out, that people on all levels - from heads of state to menial officials - talk to each other across borders and that also private companies can play a role in politics? Wauw..
And: Please do not write all the time, what you are going to write and also write, what you have just written. It is maddening.
I think I will invite the professors to the next meeting in my apartment building with all the tenants, so they can catch a glimpse of real people doing a bit of politics.. it will astonish the gentlemen I am sure.
August 31, 2025
This was a hard one to get through. A well-made and increasingly important point about power imbalances in international policy, and ways activists can exploit those imbalances in an interdependent world in favor of either security or privacy. But this could easily have been 1/3 as long and still been as thorough. Lots of repetition, and impossibly dry.
September 3, 2023
Interesting
July 2, 2019
This book was a Best of the Best for the month of July, 2019, as selected by Stevo's Book Reviews on the Internet. You can find me at http://forums.delphiforums.com/stevo1, on my Stevo's Novel Ideas Amazon Influencer page (https://www.amazon.com/shop/stevo4747) or search for me on Google for many more reviews and recommendations.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews