Trump just accidentally sabotaged the US’s standing as “adequate” (LOL) w.r.t EU→US data transfers. Good news for Europeans!

Being the tyrant that Trump is (who loves nothing more than to fire people), he fired some high-ranking FTC officials without cause (read: for being liberal). IIUC, this power play is a classic vindictive right-wing move to simply punish anyone perceived as left-leaning. It’s a hypocritical display of conservatives making an exception to prioritizing the bottom line above all else.

The EU had previously made an absurd decision that privacy is in the USA was “adequate” (WTF.. are you kidding me?) which had the flimsy loop-holey basis that the FTC was “independent” (despite, IIUC, that the POTUS probably appoints FTC commissioners to begin with).

The Trump-stacked right-leaning supreme court just ruled in Trump’s favor, stating that an independent FTC is actually unconstitutional, thus allowing Trump to arbitrarily fire liberals therein without cause. Now that Trump abusively exercised power, the EU’s flimsy basis that FTC-independence assures adequate privacy protection has become manifestly indefensible.

Thanks for shooting yourself in the foot, Trump!

Now when data of EU data subjects’ is shared with the US-based entities, the data protection authorities will be even more embarrassed (one hopes) when they refuse to act on Art.77 complaints about it.

(alternate link to this story).