Editorial Board

Don’t Let the National Security Agency Kill the Internet: View

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Thirty, 20 or even 10 years from now, will historians write that the unbridled zeal of the National Security Agency fatally undermined U.S. leadership in the Information Age and the creation of a truly global Internet?

The latest sign this could happen comes from the European Parliament, where legislators have advanced privacy legislation that would forbid the transfer of data generated in the European Union to an outside country unless the subject in question and the EU source country first give their permission. Legislators have revived language that the U.S. previously lobbied against, and upped fines for violations to 100 million euros ($138 million) or 5 percent of turnover, whichever is greater.