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by kryptiskt 4501 days ago
European governments haven't earned our trust any more than the US government. The adversary may vary, but the network is the same hostile environment and should be treated with the same caution.
1 comments

I would say that at least the German government has a better track record in consumer/privacy protection. Far from perfect obviously, but better.
Germany is part of the Five Eyes/Nine Eyes/UKUSA network [1], which was established so that the respective intelligence communities can share data. There is at least one of the US' Echelon stations in Germany [2].

I would wager that Germany would intercept the majority of traffic in this "Europe network" and then give the stuff to the US. Nothing would change.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

That is protection against companies collecting data. It says nothing about the reach of their secret services. Those two things shouldn't be confused. And even if Merkel would wish and be able to rein in Germany's spooks she has no such power over France where tapping everything is seen as perfectly normal.