I wish it were easy as that. Some EU governments, e.g., France, were found out to be spying on their own citizens in a manner similar to NSA. The UK, a member of the EU, held Greenwald's partner at Heathrow for search and questioning. Spain (or was it Portugal, or both?) was implicated in refusing to refuel the Bolivian president's plane. Other than pouting a lot, Germany has done basically nothing to retaliate against its leader being spied on by the NSA.
At least Brazil had the guts to stand up to the US.
The reports on France spying its own citizen were heavily misleadingly reported in the US press. They conflated 4 very different things :
- The SDECE Domme listening base, near Sarlat, and its brethens dedicated to Satellite interceptions, which happens only on coms where there is a satelite component which normally means foreigns comms. As SDECE is a spy outfit, they are are just doing their work, and it is important with counter terrorism in north Africa. There is a grey legal area as they are not supposed to spy on coms between residents even abroad, eg with boats, but that is minor. nothing to see here, just a molehill some named Everest. It is true this is a big big base with very modern equipement
- Police has technical means installed at ISP and mobile operators for warrant based interceptions, but said warrants are kept non public to avoid warning the listenee. It is not undiscrimated full interception. There was some abuse there reported, but nothing really serious.
- There was serious unlawfull intercepts of billling info, which is a kind of metadata, and gives the callees numbers. Loophole was closed but at some cost on privacy making unwaranted seizing possible in some circumstances.
- The only real problem is the change of law in 2006, which relaxed a lot the rules governing unwarranted mobile interceptions in the name of fighting terrorism. This particular law is set to change in 2015, but the current writing is considered by some to be even worse.
All in all, there is listening, yes, probably even too much, but nothing compared to the scope NSA do it. In fact we would not even have the computing capacity to do it I think.
UK, as I said is at US orders and only nominally in EU .
Shojin Monkey - fair enough. The problem remains that with that argument any domestic ISP can pick a country to host their server and now U.S. law enforcement is subject to that foreign privacy law. While that concept was an obvious reality when we were talking about physical belongings, it is very different in an online world. If I want to physically store my 1000 pounds of marijuana in Mexico, I know the FBI can't just go kick in the door there even with a U.S. warrant. But if I am writing emails here in the U.S. about selling my 1000 pounds of MJ to a buyer here in the U.S. and the government gets a warrant for the content of those emails, I can't reasonably expect to be protected merely because my ISP happens to store my emails in Dublin. Heck, I don't have the faintest clue where my data is actually "physically" stored! That concept doesn't even make sense in an online world because the data is accessible to me anywhere I go.
As I said, the problem is that the 4th Amendment protections we U.S. citizens all take for granted don't apply when we go using online services. You are literally giving someone else your information - the Constitution does not protect that data. So, the ECPA gives some privacy rights, but prescribes how those privacy rights can be overcome. For subscriber information (but not content) a subpoena is enough. (Note to all - a subpoena does NOT require probable cause.) A subpoena requires a company to produce all information available to them - regardless of where it is physically located. This is important - it does not matter if the information is in Dublin, they have to produce it. So, why would email content ultimately be any different? The U.S. could have written the ECPA to simply say a subpoena is sufficient because the privacy rights are only bestowed by the ECPA. If they had done so, Microsoft would have no argument at all here.
Does anyone really think Congress meant to make Microsoft (a U.S. company) email content subject to Irish or Yemeni or Pakistani law when they said the feds needed a warrant before they could force MS to produce it? (Remember, this was Congress before all the hoopla about the NSA!) Not a chance!
A typically idiotic comment, but I know from direct experience that EU companies are turning away from the US because we don't trust the US and we don't accept the concept of US exceptionalism. The arrogance of America is not going to turn out well for anyone except their adversaries and competition, which is a good thing.
...not to mention US corporations being given the power to sue foreign governments for "restricting trade" e.g. Philip Morris vs Venezuela because they had the hide to enact legislation requiring health warnings on cigarette packets.
Maybe an Australian tobacco company should sue California for "restricting trade" by restricting smoking.
Then there's requiring penalties to be applied to foreign nationals accused without the presumption of innocence in copyright infringement cases.
Not when it comes to privacy! Unlike good ole Uncle Sam, the EU respects their citizens. Watch the size of the fines if we break those laws. US firms will be in a world of hurt. What kind of country do we live in these days? Best in the world my fkng ass!
Your 'direct experience'? With what? For which product? Category? From which US company to which company (and country)? What competition?
Can not speak for that guy, however, I do have direct experience and work for a international company which we have lots of business outside the US and one of our customers is the US government and its various agencies as well as many government and telecom companies around the world and some EU counties and companies are very suspicious what we do with the US government and make it well know if they have a choose they will give business to EU companies even if our solutions are better.
Grant it some of this activity is protectionism, but some of it coming from the lack of trust created by our governments activities. The reason you seeing these companies speak out like this is due to the fact they are being told by non-US customer their business will be hurt by these activities. Do you really think Apple would make such a statement is future business was not on the line for them.
BTW, my company spend lots of lobbying $ to make sure their issues and concerns are head by the stupid idiots on Washington, it just does the same thing as Apple just not so public.
Already US citizens in Europe find it next to impossible to get investment advice, tax advice or even basic banking services due to the global control ambitions of the SEC. If this is extended to tech companies too, well, it looks like the US is just building a wall for itself and can't see it's a prison, not a garden.
Comments
I wish it were easy as that. Some EU governments, e.g., France, were found out to be spying on their own citizens in a manner similar to NSA. The UK, a member of the EU, held Greenwald's partner at Heathrow for search and questioning. Spain (or was it Portugal, or both?) was implicated in refusing to refuel the Bolivian president's plane. Other than pouting a lot, Germany has done basically nothing to retaliate against its leader being spied on by the NSA.
At least Brazil had the guts to stand up to the US.
The reports on France spying its own citizen were heavily misleadingly reported in the US press. They conflated 4 very different things :
- The SDECE Domme listening base, near Sarlat, and its brethens dedicated to Satellite interceptions, which happens only on coms where there is a satelite component which normally means foreigns comms. As SDECE is a spy outfit, they are are just doing their work, and it is important with counter terrorism in north Africa. There is a grey legal area as they are not supposed to spy on coms between residents even abroad, eg with boats, but that is minor. nothing to see here, just a molehill some named Everest. It is true this is a big big base with very modern equipement
- Police has technical means installed at ISP and mobile operators for warrant based interceptions, but said warrants are kept non public to avoid warning the listenee. It is not undiscrimated full interception. There was some abuse there reported, but nothing really serious.
- There was serious unlawfull intercepts of billling info, which is a kind of metadata, and gives the callees numbers. Loophole was closed but at some cost on privacy making unwaranted seizing possible in some circumstances.
- The only real problem is the change of law in 2006, which relaxed a lot the rules governing unwarranted mobile interceptions in the name of fighting terrorism. This particular law is set to change in 2015, but the current writing is considered by some to be even worse.
All in all, there is listening, yes, probably even too much, but nothing compared to the scope NSA do it. In fact we would not even have the computing capacity to do it I think.
UK, as I said is at US orders and only nominally in EU .
Shojin Monkey - fair enough. The problem remains that with that argument any domestic ISP can pick a country to host their server and now U.S. law enforcement is subject to that foreign privacy law. While that concept was an obvious reality when we were talking about physical belongings, it is very different in an online world. If I want to physically store my 1000 pounds of marijuana in Mexico, I know the FBI can't just go kick in the door there even with a U.S. warrant. But if I am writing emails here in the U.S. about selling my 1000 pounds of MJ to a buyer here in the U.S. and the government gets a warrant for the content of those emails, I can't reasonably expect to be protected merely because my ISP happens to store my emails in Dublin. Heck, I don't have the faintest clue where my data is actually "physically" stored! That concept doesn't even make sense in an online world because the data is accessible to me anywhere I go.
As I said, the problem is that the 4th Amendment protections we U.S. citizens all take for granted don't apply when we go using online services. You are literally giving someone else your information - the Constitution does not protect that data. So, the ECPA gives some privacy rights, but prescribes how those privacy rights can be overcome. For subscriber information (but not content) a subpoena is enough. (Note to all - a subpoena does NOT require probable cause.) A subpoena requires a company to produce all information available to them - regardless of where it is physically located. This is important - it does not matter if the information is in Dublin, they have to produce it. So, why would email content ultimately be any different? The U.S. could have written the ECPA to simply say a subpoena is sufficient because the privacy rights are only bestowed by the ECPA. If they had done so, Microsoft would have no argument at all here.
Does anyone really think Congress meant to make Microsoft (a U.S. company) email content subject to Irish or Yemeni or Pakistani law when they said the feds needed a warrant before they could force MS to produce it? (Remember, this was Congress before all the hoopla about the NSA!) Not a chance!
A typically idiotic comment, but I know from direct experience that EU companies are turning away from the US because we don't trust the US and we don't accept the concept of US exceptionalism. The arrogance of America is not going to turn out well for anyone except their adversaries and competition, which is a good thing.
...not to mention US corporations being given the power to sue foreign governments for "restricting trade" e.g. Philip Morris vs Venezuela because they had the hide to enact legislation requiring health warnings on cigarette packets.
Maybe an Australian tobacco company should sue California for "restricting trade" by restricting smoking.
Then there's requiring penalties to be applied to foreign nationals accused without the presumption of innocence in copyright infringement cases.
Just wish they'd stay out of other countries domain and other countries business
And, another b-s posting from you.
Your 'direct experience'? With what? For which product? Category? From which US company to which company (and country)? What competition?
Can not speak for that guy, however, I do have direct experience and work for a international company which we have lots of business outside the US and one of our customers is the US government and its various agencies as well as many government and telecom companies around the world and some EU counties and companies are very suspicious what we do with the US government and make it well know if they have a choose they will give business to EU companies even if our solutions are better.
Grant it some of this activity is protectionism, but some of it coming from the lack of trust created by our governments activities. The reason you seeing these companies speak out like this is due to the fact they are being told by non-US customer their business will be hurt by these activities. Do you really think Apple would make such a statement is future business was not on the line for them.
BTW, my company spend lots of lobbying $ to make sure their issues and concerns are head by the stupid idiots on Washington, it just does the same thing as Apple just not so public.