We frequently decry this government for making us perhaps the most spied-on nation on earth, ever. And having got hold of our extremely valuable information, they have then managed to use it to put us at risk - which as Nick said in his speech in Liverpool last Sunday, if it weren’t so serious would be laughable from a government that at the same time was advising us all to buy personal home shredders to protect our personal information.

But the ways in which they’ve put our information at risk are not only through their own actions - but also by allowing other people, who are even more cavalier with it than they are, to insist that we give it to them too.

I’ve highlighted before (George Bush knows your credit card number) the large amount of information which the American government insists on knowing about anyone before they can travel to the USA - as well as the fact that they have no real grasp of the concept of protecting that information once they’ve got it.

The US government’s approach to its citizens’ information is fundamentally different to the European approach. The European Union has been attempting to use its bargaining power to tackle the Bush administration on this - and they have had some success (though there has been some debate about whether there was some use of smoke and mirrors to achieve it). But the basic problem has been that while some in the European Parliament oppose the “Passenger Name Recognition” or PNR scheme, ministers from the 27 countries of the EU have been much happier to sign up to Washington wants.

The latest way that the Bush administration has been trying to win this battle has been rather than negotiating with the European Union as a whole - who together have an extremely strong bargaining position - to pick off the countries one by one. So they have negotiated an individual deal, on this occasion with the Czech Republic, which currently has one of the most pro-US governments of the EU-27, that the Czech Republic will go along with what they want. Next they will try and do the same with another EU member state that it has particularly friendly relations with (perhaps Poland - and just in case you haven’t picked up on the historical parallel for the Bush administration’s approach yet, does it help if I point out that the Czech republic contains the Sudetenland?).

There are two important points arising from this.

The first is the reminder that the EU can be an immensely powerful force for good in the world, whether in protecting personal data, saving the environment, or promoting an ethical approach to global trade. But it can only do this if it works together. If we let other powerful global forces, whether that the be the USA or al-Qaeda or anyone else, divide us unnecessarily, we will be infinitely less able to achieve our common objectives, such as protecting people’s personal data.

The second lesson is about the need for stronger European democracy. The European Parliament - directly elected by us all - can help to promote and protect positions which have wide popular support, often more effectively than representatives of the 27 European governments, who do most of their work both with each other and with other governments, behind closed doors. History teaches that when it comes to a choice, individual national governments - somewhat predictably - naturally promote the interests of themselves as governments, over those of their citizens.

This may be predictable behaviour from them, but that is no reason why we as citizens need to accept it as the best way of working. Within the European institutional architecture the whip hand still lies, more often than not, with representatives of national governments meeting in the EU Council, than with the European Parliament. The European Parliament has been debating this issue recently. But quite simply they do not have have the powers to drive the hard decisions on issues such as this. On a whole range of issues the people we elected need to have the power to act in our interests.