The article claims that France's intelligence services are "a comparatively-unpowered agency"
That would depend on the meaning of the word "comparatively" If we're talking the number of people employed in the US intelligence sector vs. the French intelligence sector, then it is true.
The French intelligence sector generally operates under less legal restrictions and less oversight restrictions than their US counterparts.
Please google the term transfer pricing. I believe that bit of information will let you know: a) How this mechanism lets a company produce goods in one country, sell in other countries and have everything even out. b) Abuse the tax system to shift profits to the countries where they pay the least taxes.
The problem is that it is required for a company to operate globally. Unfortunately, for honest people and companies, it is also extremely simple to abuse this system.
"no moving profits to another country to benefit from there tax level," Is problematic for EU's single market.
One of the ideas behind the single market is that anyone within the EU can sell to everyone within the EU. You shouldn't be required to setup shop in each EU member country.
Instead, you report your profits to your country's tax authorities, including which member country you sold the goods in. It then becomes an exercise for the tax authorities of the individual member countries tax authorities to shuffle tax revenue around between them.
This is utterly and total nonsense. Nothing more, nothing less.
This has nothing to do with the double dutch model or anything like it. This is about the Irish tax authority knowingly turning a blind eye to tax evasion.
Apple in Ireland has two companies, one which receives all revenue from goods and services sold in Ireland - which does pay taxes. All other revenue from Europe, The Middle East and India is routed through another company. That company didn't pay one dime/cent in taxes.
In and by itself routing some of the profits into a separate company is not illegal. The problem arises when the learn that the second company has no offices, no employees, etc.
That is the problem. Apple used one transfer pricing scheme for the strictly Irish revenue and another transfer pricing scheme for all other profits.
In short, the Irish tax authorities accepted that cost of goods Apple sold in Ireland was more expensive than the cost of goods sold in the rest of the world, despite the ROW company didn't have any running costs.
This is turning a blind eye on tax evasion, and thus gives one company, in this case Apple, a competitive advantage other companies do not have.
Ireland was violating the state aid clause of the Rome Treaty (1958), a treaty which was part of the bundle Ireland accepted when it joined in 1973.
Europe is not against American tech companies, on the contrary. We are against companies, local, global and anything in between trying to violate our laws.
Somehow I have the feeling that a lot of American companies believe they don't have to follow the law, and when we point out to them that, yes! the law applies to you as well, some people get their panties in a twist.
Isn't there a circular logic in Mr. Mike Rogers' reasoning?
If Google, Microsoft, Cisco, et.al. doesn't act against NSA surveilance, then they will loose customers. Specifically - in Europe - to European based competitors. Thus, cutting off the NSA from that traffic.
So if they don't act, NSA will loose the ability to snoop around, if they do act, then NSA has the hope of atleast snooping something?
I read both your posts, and they clearly leave the impression that you seem to think that the principles behind anglo-saxon contract law work similarly to roman law tradition.
Your reference to estoppel, and your obvious belief of it's universal relevance is a clear indicator.
Trying to rescue your argument, by turning to simple name-calling and cliech?s rather than staying on topic speaks for it self.
Please note the anonymous cowards post: "The problem is that this is an implicit contract where the parties never actually worked out the details. Now they disagree what the terms actually were and the court has to decide who is right. Nothing new, unlikely or staggering here."
The woman had at no point in time given the photographer permission to make the pictures public.
The pictures were made for their shared personal enjoyment, and not public consumption.
In this world where lots of boyfriends feel they have right to get "even" with the girlfriend, when she decides to leave him, it's no wonder she wanted them back.
I would suggest that the OP leave his highly theoretical ideological horse, and start to move around in the real world. Where women on a daily basis suffer from boyfriends out for revenge.
Things are NOT moving in the right direction. What was repealed was data-logging, which was in excess of the EU directive. In effect the danish government was going much further than the original EU logging directive.
The repeal is only related to that "excess". Logging of phone meta data is still being performed, despite the court ruling.
Further more, The Danish government is planning to re-introduce both kinds of logging, as part of a planned cyber security center.
This law calls for the logging initiative to be moved to the military intelligence service (FE). Which moves logging into the domain of national security.
National security is explictly exempt from the Treaty Of Rome. Consequently the ruling of the EU Court of Justice, and the CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION do not apply.
In short, they'll just skin the cat using a different tool.
Although IANAL, it sounds to me as if ISDS will run afoul in the EU ratification process.
The way I see it, ISDS will remove sovereignty from the individual member countries. This cannot be done without the treatry being ratified by each individual EU member country.
An in quite a few countries, this will require a referendum. Given the austerity measures invoked to keep the EURO afloat, I have sincere doubts that any referendum in response to the EU will meet with favorable results for the EU.
Although IANAL, from the descrition it sounds as if "Corporate Soverignty" requires that individual EU countries yields judicial soverty to a legal system outside the auspices of the EU.
If that is the case then such an agreement would require a referendum in my country, and probably in a lot of other EU countries as well.
Generally the EU council tries to avoid anything - unless absolutely unavoidable - which requires approval in each individual member country.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by anla.
Not that small
The article claims that France's intelligence services are "a comparatively-unpowered agency"
That would depend on the meaning of the word "comparatively" If we're talking the number of people employed in the US intelligence sector vs. the French intelligence sector, then it is true.
The French intelligence sector generally operates under less legal restrictions and less oversight restrictions than their US counterparts.
Re: Re:
Please google the term transfer pricing. I believe that bit of information will let you know:
a) How this mechanism lets a company produce goods in one country, sell in other countries and have everything even out.
b) Abuse the tax system to shift profits to the countries where they pay the least taxes.
The problem is that it is required for a company to operate globally. Unfortunately, for honest people and companies, it is also extremely simple to abuse this system.
Re: Puggledash
"no moving profits to another country to benefit from there tax level," Is problematic for EU's single market.
One of the ideas behind the single market is that anyone within the EU can sell to everyone within the EU. You shouldn't be required to setup shop in each EU member country.
Instead, you report your profits to your country's tax authorities, including which member country you sold the goods in. It then becomes an exercise for the tax authorities of the individual member countries tax authorities to shuffle tax revenue around between them.
To the op: "Do you even believe believe what you are saying"
This is utterly and total nonsense. Nothing more, nothing less.
This has nothing to do with the double dutch model or anything like it. This is about the Irish tax authority knowingly turning a blind eye to tax evasion.
Apple in Ireland has two companies, one which receives all revenue from goods and services sold in Ireland - which does pay taxes. All other revenue from Europe, The Middle East and India is routed through another company. That company didn't pay one dime/cent in taxes.
In and by itself routing some of the profits into a separate company is not illegal. The problem arises when the learn that the second company has no offices, no employees, etc.
That is the problem. Apple used one transfer pricing scheme for the strictly Irish revenue and another transfer pricing scheme for all other profits.
In short, the Irish tax authorities accepted that cost of goods Apple sold in Ireland was more expensive than the cost of goods sold in the rest of the world, despite the ROW company didn't have any running costs.
This is turning a blind eye on tax evasion, and thus gives one company, in this case Apple, a competitive advantage other companies do not have.
Ireland was violating the state aid clause of the Rome Treaty (1958), a treaty which was part of the bundle Ireland accepted when it joined in 1973.
Europe is not against American tech companies, on the contrary. We are against companies, local, global and anything in between trying to violate our laws.
Somehow I have the feeling that a lot of American companies believe they don't have to follow the law, and when we point out to them that, yes! the law applies to you as well, some people get their panties in a twist.
Circular logic
Isn't there a circular logic in Mr. Mike Rogers' reasoning?
If Google, Microsoft, Cisco, et.al. doesn't act against NSA surveilance, then they will loose customers. Specifically - in Europe - to European based competitors. Thus, cutting off the NSA from that traffic.
So if they don't act, NSA will loose the ability to snoop around, if they do act, then NSA has the hope of atleast snooping something?
Re:
Politics has never worked. People complained about politics even at the height of Nero's rule.
Even the harshest dictator has to deal with political factions bickering.
Re: Just wait!
@KevinEHayden
There are some very fundamental legal differences between the EU and the US. Frequently you'll see these two legal systems at odds with one another.
Forcing global service providers into a situation where they have to choose between breaking EU law or US law.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Copyright implications are staggering
@G Thompson
I read both your posts, and they clearly leave the impression that you seem to think that the principles behind anglo-saxon contract law work similarly to roman law tradition.
Your reference to estoppel, and your obvious belief of it's universal relevance is a clear indicator.
Trying to rescue your argument, by turning to simple name-calling and cliech?s rather than staying on topic speaks for it self.
Please note the anonymous cowards post:
"The problem is that this is an implicit contract where the parties never actually worked out the details. Now they disagree what the terms actually were and the court has to decide who is right. Nothing new, unlikely or staggering here."
Re: Re: Re: Copyright implications are staggering
@G Thompson
Do you even know the practical differences between roman law tradition and anglo-saxon law tradition?
"venire contra factum proprium non valet", does not carry the weight you seem to assume.
The op is just plain stupid
The woman had at no point in time given the photographer permission to make the pictures public.
The pictures were made for their shared personal enjoyment, and not public consumption.
In this world where lots of boyfriends feel they have right to get "even" with the girlfriend, when she decides to leave him, it's no wonder she wanted them back.
I would suggest that the OP leave his highly theoretical ideological horse, and start to move around in the real world. Where women on a daily basis suffer from boyfriends out for revenge.
Misrepresenting the truth
Things are NOT moving in the right direction. What was repealed was data-logging, which was in excess of the EU directive. In effect the danish government was going much further than the original EU logging directive.
The repeal is only related to that "excess". Logging of phone meta data is still being performed, despite the court ruling.
Further more, The Danish government is planning to re-introduce both kinds of logging, as part of a planned cyber security center.
This law calls for the logging initiative to be moved to the military intelligence service (FE). Which moves logging into the domain of national security.
National security is explictly exempt from the Treaty Of Rome. Consequently the ruling of the EU Court of Justice, and the CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION do not apply.
In short, they'll just skin the cat using a different tool.
Ratification process
Although IANAL, it sounds to me as if ISDS will run afoul in the EU ratification process.
The way I see it, ISDS will remove sovereignty from the individual member countries. This cannot be done without the treatry being ratified by each individual EU member country.
An in quite a few countries, this will require a referendum. Given the austerity measures invoked to keep the EURO afloat, I have sincere doubts that any referendum in response to the EU will meet with favorable results for the EU.
Referendum required
Although IANAL, from the descrition it sounds as if "Corporate Soverignty" requires that individual EU countries yields judicial soverty to a legal system outside the auspices of the EU.
If that is the case then such an agreement would require a referendum in my country, and probably in a lot of other EU countries as well.
Generally the EU council tries to avoid anything - unless absolutely unavoidable - which requires approval in each individual member country.