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US Unhappy With Australians Storing Data On Australian Shores
Fluffeh writes "The United States' global trade representative has strongly criticized a perceived preference on the part of large Australian organizations for hosting their data on-shore in Australia, claiming it created a significant trade barrier for U.S. technology firms. A number of U.S. companies had expressed concerns that various departments in the Australian Government, namely the Department of Defence had been sending negative messages about cloud providers based outside the country, implying that 'hosting data overseas, including in the United States, by definition entails greater risk and unduly exposes consumers to their data being scrutinized by foreign governments.' Recently, Acting Victorian Privacy Commissioner Anthony Bendall highlighted some of the privacy concerns with cloud computing, particularly in its use by the local government. He said the main problems were the lack of control over stored data and privacy, in overseas cloud service providers."
As a US citizen, I can't help but think WTF. Let them (and the rest of the world, for that matter) do whatever the fuck they want.
The point of a trade representative to another country is to shill, without principle, for the interests of their country's economy. If the US Trade Representative gets too pushy, just remind him that if the US ever has any intention of "containing China," Australia is one of those "do not piss off, under any circumstances" regional bases. It's especially important to have on our good side in the event China ever goes batshit crazy by seizing Taiwan, then says "since we've already risked WWIII, let's just go ahead and invade South Korea and Japan as well since their armies aren't worth shit."
It's not just live data located in the US. It's data in Australia managed by a US company that could be subject to a US warrant, or even backups of Aus servers hosted in the US.
I work for an American cloud service provider, and even we do not want to store our(customers') data in the U.S. The patriot act is a huge obstacle when selling to foreign customers. Hence why we have a major data center in Canada, and are looking at putting one in the U.K.
(see http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/patriot-act-and-privacy-laws-take-a-bite-out-of-us-cloud-business.ars)
AccountKiller
Dear Australia,
I, an American Citizen and veteran of the Marine Corps where I served an an infantry machine gunner, and filling billets including intelligence analyst and company clerk, sincerely apologize for this.
Although this isn't my fault (for I was not allowed to vote while I was in the service. This is my opinion, I found it too much of a coincidence that my ballot and that of a friend from the same state arrived exactly 1 month to the day after it was supposed to be postmarked for return. Twice.), you can bet I will vote this round, and will not be voting for anyone that is currently in office, for they all allow these things to happen, which is an embarrassment to us all.
I'm E-mailing my senators and congressman now. I have other concerns to raise with them anyway, like why my state charges sales tax on private sales of vehicles (double taxation) and why they want to charge tax on the Real Market Value of said vehicle even though it was sold for 1/3 that price (taxing money not spent).
Sincerely,
Troubled American Citizen
P.S. Are you guys still open for citizenship? At times it's more prudent to abandon a sinking vessel rather than continue trying to fix what is so severely broken.
Why would we ever extradite someone just because they helped someone else copy something? Where are our priorities? We gain nothing and lose much from wasting our time on such trivial nonsense.