By PAUL GEITNER, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Parliament on Wednesday said it was illegal for the United States to force European airlines to provide data on arriving passengers and threatened to go to court to block an agreement that calls for the information sharing.
The vote came a day after European Union ministers overcame similar privacy concerns and agreed to give their own law enforcement authorities access to more limited passenger data.
To combat terrorism, Washington has demanded airlines headed for the United States transmit extensive passenger information — from credit card numbers to meal preferences — within 15 minutes of departure. Noncompliance can be punished with fines of up to $6,000 a passenger and the loss of landing rights.
Airlines, caught between having to satisfy U.S. demands and EU privacy law, have been operating under interim arrangements while negotiations were underway. The agreement reached last December is less than Washington initially sought as far as the amount of data that can be collected, who can see it and how long it can be stored.
But the Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, France, voted 229 to 202 for a nonbinding resolution calling on the European Commission, which negotiated on behalf of the EU, to demand a better deal.
The resolution said there is no legal basis for supplying commercially gathered data for "public security purposes."
"Such access is illegal under member state and EU privacy laws," the resolution said, adding Parliament reserved the right to mount a legal challenge at the European Court of Justice if the agreement is adopted by the full Commission as is.
Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said only that the Commission would "reflect on its next steps at a forthcoming meeting," adding there was no deadline.
Parliament, however, aims to act before new elections in June, a spokesman said. The last plenary session is May 3-6.
Parliament had to be consulted before the agreement is adopted, but cannot block it on its own.
Dutch Liberal Johanna Boogerd-Quaak, who drafted the resolution, noted that EU national data protection commissioners concluded in January that the present agreement was still inadequate.
"We are not satisfied with the privacy safeguards secured by the Commission, and we now expect them to withdraw their decision and come back with better safeguards," said Boogerd-Quaak.
Commission officials have defended the agreement as striking a balance between privacy concerns and the need to combat terrorism.
The information to be required from airlines landing in Europe is less extensive than that sought by Washington. The EU measure would be limited to name, date of birth, nationality, passport number and flight information.
EU interior and justice ministers rejected moves by France, Sweden and some other EU governments to require the information be wiped from computer records after just 24 hours, allowing countries that want to keep it longer to do so.
British Home Office Minister Caroline Flint called the proposed restrictions incompatible with British law and a pledge last week for greater cooperation in tracking terrorists in the wake of the Madrid train bombings.
Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell said ministers agreed limiting access to the data to customs or immigration agencies as initially proposed a year ago was no longer sufficient.
"I don't think the people of Europe would forgive us if information which could prevent an atrocity was sitting in files ... and simply not capable of being consulted by people who needed to have access to it to save lives," he said Tuesday night.
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The International Court of Justice on Wednesday ruled that the United States violated the rights of 51 Mexicans on death row and ordered their cases be reviewed.
The United Nations' highest judiciary, also known as the world court, was considering a suit filed by Mexico claiming 52 convicted murderers weren't given their right to assistance from their government.
"The U.S. should provide by means of its own choosing meaningful review of the conviction and sentence" of the Mexicans, presiding judge Shi Jiuyong said.
Shi said the review, in all but three cases, could be carried out under the normal appeals process in the United States.
But for three men whose have already exhausted all other appeals, the court said the United States should make an exception and review their cases one last time.
The court found that in the remaining case, the convict had received his rights and his case didn't need to be reviewed.
At the heart of the Mexico-U.S. case is the 1963 Vienna Convention, which guarantees people accused of a serious crime while in a foreign country the right to contact their own government for help and that they be informed of that right by arresting authorities.
The world court is charged with resolving disputes between nations and has jurisdiction over the treaty. It found that U.S. authorities hadn't properly informed the 51 men of their rights when they realized they were foreigners.
Both the United States and Mexico were preparing reactions to the ruling.
The United States had argued the case was a sovereignty issue, and the 15-judge tribunal should be wary of allowing itself to be used as a criminal appeals court, which is not its mandate.
In hearings in December, lawyers for Mexico argued that any U.S. citizen accused of a serious crime abroad would want the same right, and the only fair solution for the men allegedly denied diplomatic help was to start their legal processes all over again.
Juan Manuel Gomez said that Mexico "doesn't contest the United States' right as a sovereign country to impose the death penalty for the most grave crimes," but wants to make sure its citizens aren't abused by a foreign legal system they don't always understand.
U.S. lawyer William Taft argued that the prisoners had received fair trials. He said even if the prisoners didn't get consular help, the way to remedy the wrong "must be left to the United States."
In its written arguments, the United States said that Mexico's request would be a "radical intrusion" into the U.S. justice system, contradicting laws and customs in every city and state in the nation.
"The court has never ordered any form of restitution nearly as far reaching as that sought by Mexico," the arguments said.
In 2001, a similar case came before the court filed by Germany to stop the execution of two German brothers who also had not been informed of their right to consular assistance. One brother was executed before the court could act. The judges ordered a stay of execution for the second brother, Walter LaGrand, until it could deliberate, but he was executed anyway by the state authorities of Arizona.
Under the court's statute, its judgments are "binding, final and without appeal." Its rulings have rarely been ignored, and if one side claims the other has failed to carry out the court's decision, it may take the issue to the U.N. Security Council.
When the court finally handed down the belated ruling in 2001, it chastised the U.S. government for not halting the LaGrand execution, and rejected arguments that Washington was powerless to intervene in criminal cases under the authority of the individual states.
Mexican President Vicente Fox canceled a visit to President Bush's ranch in 2002 to protest the execution of a Mexican citizen not mentioned in the world court suit. The visit finally took place earlier this month.