In a somewhat surprising move, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the Commission’s directorate general for trade (DG Trade) have been given fewer of the co-chair positions than expected, leading to some griping there’s more tech than trade in the ongoing transatlantic talks. At the core is the same issue that plagues the ongoing talks around a new so-called EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement: what legal assurances can Washington provide to meet demands from Europe’s top court that EU citizens’ personal information is protected from unfettered access from American national security agencies?