Edward Snowden, fugitive former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, began tweeting from exile last week. His latest tweeting has been in celebration of yesterday's ruling by the European Court of Justice invalidating the US Safe Harbour Decision, thus ending data privacy standards between the US and Europe as we know them.
Europe's high court just struck down a major law routinely abused for surveillance. We are all safer as a result. pic.twitter.com/mR4hHTrTok
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 6, 2015
The ruling began with a case inspired by Snowden's revelation of confidential NSA information, which Austrian law student Max Schrems alleged violated European privacy rights. Schrems brought a case against Facebook in Ireland last year, arguing that the standards put forth by Safe Harbour were too weak to adequately comply with European privacy standards. The court's recent ruling agrees with Schrems' stance.
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Snowden, whose Twitter following has grown to 1.39 million since he created the account on September 29, appeared thrilled with the invalidation of Safe Harbour and credited Schrems with the legal overhaul:
Congratulations, @MaxSchrems. You've changed the world for the better. http://t.co/HmGpRq5Dgt pic.twitter.com/rTLYHhvmoY
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 6, 2015
Snowden went on to thank the European justice system for taking action to protect citizens' privacy.
This is the second time in as many years the world has relied upon #CJEU to defend digital rights. Thank you Europe. #DataRetentionDirective
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 6, 2015
