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The natural reaction of many citizens, companies and governments is to try to get their data out of the United States and out of the hands of American companies. The idea is a seductive one, even for Americans. Offshoring money has been a popular strategy for tax avoidance. Why not offshore data to a foreign company?
This offshoring of data to avoid surveillance is not just an idle notion. As a privacy lawyer with experience in the intelligence community and the Obama White House, technology companies have asked me how they might pursue such a strategy. It turns out that shifting user data abroad or into the hands of foreign companies is a very poor way to combat American surveillance.
The Justice Department may put a lot of pressure on Swiss banks, but it doesn’t hack into offshore accounts to recover ill-gotten gains. By contrast, intelligence agencies are not known for scrupulously observing the laws of foreign countries in which they operate, even when (as in the United States) they are subject to a system of domestic legal oversight.
NSA directors have stated quite openly their desire to collect everything American law permits. However, what the law allows the NSA to do varies starkly depending on where data is collected. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the rules that apply to data collected from a switch, wire, or server in the United States are stricter than the safeguards that apply to data collected overseas.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @10:53PM
(or, at least, not explicitly illegal)
It's explicitly against the spirit of the constitution and what "the land of the free and the home of the brave" should be doing, though.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday January 06 2015, @04:16AM
there really are 'two americas'.
there's the one that most people live in, they are taught about 'good and evil' and right and wrong and how we are all this (blah blah, bullshit, bullshit). they think that what they are told or taught is real.
then there's the shadow US that does whatever the fuck it wants, no one is strong enough to challenge or topple that power base and they get away with, quite literally, murder. anything they want. no watchmen watching them (that would dare turn them in).
the so-called leaders are figureheads and have no real power. the real power brokers are those with names that you and I will never know. they won't be brought to justice and they will continue to be the artistocracy in the US, completely untouchable by any kind of laws (or ethics).
until we all - as a country - wake up and realize this DUALITY, we are fucked and fucked three ways till tuesday.
nsa, nsl's - those are there to keep us all afraid and to keep the powerbase and status quo intact.
the american fairytale has not been true - probably not EVER. the sooner we realize this, the sooner we can re-invent the real US; the stuff that we all were taught and brought up on. until then, there will be us (the little people) and the ones who really run shit.
5 yrs ago, I would be called a tinfoil hatter.
now? not so much, huh?
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."