[RWeaver]

Definitely, I'm on the lookout for any kind of service that operates in a country with transparent law enforcement and accountability.

I trust Google not to share my sensitive information (product strategies, negotiating positions) with competitors on request, I can't trust some random agent who knows he won't be held accountable if he looks up and sends that information to his cousin.

There's the potential here to 'disrupt' the whole of silicon valley.

[techsupporter]

> I'm on the lookout for any kind of service that operates in a country with transparent law enforcement and accountability.

And Diogenes thought he had it bad when looking for an honest man. That the U.S. did this is completely despicable and I'm furious at my government--especially, the guy I voted for who ran on a platform of stopping this--for continuing to pull these stunts. I look out over the panoply of countries with "modern, well-formed" legal systems, and I keep seeing the same abuses:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2027377.stm - "The [United Kingdom] National Technical Assistance Centre (NTAC) will decrypt computer data and intercepted internet and e-mail traffic as part of a drive against cyber-crime..."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/constitutional-c... - "German Intelligence Under Fire For Spying on Parliamentarians..."

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/every-click... - "[The] telephone and internet data of every Australian will be retained for up to two years and intelligence agencies would be given increased access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter..."

Plus, if you're a foreigner (e.g. an American using Australian services), what incentive does the "other" country have to care about you? No one has complained, in this whole debate, about one country spying on the citizens of another country. This uproar happened because the U.S. NSA admitted to gathering data on domestic people under the guise of doing "foreign" surveillance.

Maybe I'm just getting too cynical.

[RWeaver]

The data retention laws in Australia haven't been approved yet to my knowledge, but as part of the Echelon program they're not safe either. Although at least they announced the intention to make those changes to let democracy work and, and didn't use gag orders for spurious reasons.

I'm expecting something in Europe (ThePirateBay crew seem pretty trustworthy), or some self sufficient island? (New Zealand?)

[te_chris]

Nope, the processes and safeguards around what the GCSB and SIS can do in NZ are laughably relaxed and just became more so. The GCSB were the agency who fucked up Kim Dotcom's case, after all.

[aragot]

> Definitely, I'm on the lookout for any kind of service that operates in a country with transparent law enforcement and accountability.

Being European, I'm looking for services which operate in my home country. I prefer to be spied where I'm a citizen, because US clearly only protects the privacy of its own citizen, and because it is illusional that intelligence services be transparent.

However, there is no such thing as a european company running cloud services for email, rss, file storage and social network: Not even talking about dismissing american-funded strat-ups, all the supposedly European services are run under a .com website, and this extension puts them under american trade and penal laws - We've had this example of a piracy UK website run by UK citizen be trialled in US, where the defendant knew no-one, for the domain was in .com.

Note that I would trust a cloud service registered in my ophome country and in .se, because they have proper forms of government.

Who's up to start such a company? I'd give them big money to keep my records home.

[magicalist]

This is not correct. You and your site are certainly not subject to "american trade and penal laws" just because a .com registered address directs to your server. They can seize your domain name, but that's it.

[aragot]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/03/us-anti-pir...

They can extrade the person: "As long as a website's address ends in .com or .net, if it is implicated in the spread of pirated US-made films, TV or other media it is a legitimate target to be closed down or targeted for prosecution"

[mnordhoff]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law

.se, huh?