[SEJeff]

What so many people fail to realize is that the NSA will try and likely succeed at penetrating these networks as well. The real difference is that they don't need FISA courts to authorize foreign intelligence operations, only domestic ones.

[bayesianhorse]

A more self-sufficient European network, especially one that excludes Great-Britain (sorry guys...), would raise the effort required to do surveillance.

The NSA doesn't have a limited budget. It already has more data than it can use.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

>would raise the effort required to do surveillance.

The UK isn't the only country that co-operates with the US authorities on this, sadly.

[jkrems]

But it's relatively unique in how close it is to the US authorities, since it's part of five eyes.

[lotsofmangos]

I don't think any EU network is likely to exclude the UK, given BT's ownership of so many key telecoms patents and the fact that they have the contract to provide external connectivity for the commission, Parliament and Council, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, the European Food Safety Authority, the European Maritime Safety Agency, the European Aviation Safety Agency and the European Agency for Reconstruction.

[vidarh]

It doesn't need to exclude UK membership. It needs to allow all traffic between points elsewhere in Europe to bypass UK networks, and ideally to allow all traffic from other places in Europe to elsewhere to bypass the UK.

And contracts are not forever.

[SEJeff]

The parent's point was that doing so is basically impossible at this stage in the game short of digging holes and building entirely new infrastructure parallel to what already exists and have someone new who hasn't managed this manage it. Good luck with that :)