[pedrocr]

Note the .EU domain name and the non-US/Europe focus of the content. As far as I've seen reported or stated by US representatives there's no going "through courts and lawyers" for non-citizens. PRISM may very well not have changed any of that but it was at least a wake up call outside the US for the fact that using US-based companies puts decisions about your data privacy in the hands of governments that view you, as a foreigner, as having absolutely no rights.

This is particularly scary because people have so far been used to considering the Internet as a sort of borderless global place and when it comes to privacy from government snooping it definitely is not.

[embolism]

Right since we can be certain that only the US government does anything like this. Put your data anywhere outside the US and it will be safe.

[justincormack]

Thats why much of this is a call for more transparency and law within Europe, including banning things that may be happening in the US, whether they are or not. We know that some European governments are doing things along these lines (with lower budgets). We had the Stasi in Europe, just a few years ago; we invented the Panopticon, and we have had a very mixed record.

[embolism]

Good luck with that: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-...

[pedrocr]

Not my point at all. If I put my data in a European datacenter I'm in the same legal jurisdiction as the potential government snoop. If I put it in the US the USG may be more or less prone to snooping than my local government but what I'm sure of is that I will never have any legal standing to challenge it if it does snoop.

I knew this before of course. And before I assumed the snooping was low enough that I didn't care that I didn't have any legal standing to challenge it. Now I'm not so sure.

[moheeb]

So does this mean I don't have to listen to people on HN complain about Netflix/Xbox Live/Pissroulette/etc. not being available outside the US anymore? Thank God!