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NSA Spying Hurts California's Business
mspohr points out an opinion piece from Joe Mathews that "makes the argument that California's economic life depends on global connections. 'Our leading industries — shipping, tourism, technology, and entertainment — could not survive, much less prosper, without the trust and goodwill of foreigners. We are home to two of the world's busiest container ports, and we are a leading exporter of engineering, architectural, design, financial, insurance, legal, and educational services. All of our signature companies — Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Chevron, Disney — rely on sales and growth overseas. And our families and workplaces are full of foreigners; more than one in four of us were born abroad, and more than 50 countries have diaspora populations in California of more than 10,000.' It quotes John Dvorak: 'Our companies have billions and billions of dollars in overseas sales and none of the American companies can guarantee security from American spies. Does anyone but me think this is a problem for commerce?' It points out that: 'Asian governments and businesses are now moving their employees and systems off Google's Gmail and other U.S.-based systems, according to Asian news reports. German prosecutors are investigating some of the American surveillance. The issue is becoming a stumbling block in negotiations with the European Union over a new trade agreement. Technology experts are warning of a big loss of foreign business.' The article goes on to suggest that perhaps a California constitutional amendment confirming privacy rights might help (but would not guarantee a stop to Federal snooping)."
Pointing out someone else also kills puppies is no basis for a defense for you killing puppies.
Which, sadly, is something people have already been warning about for some time.
That the PATRIOT act allowed the US to force US based companies to provide them this data has been known for some time. Many governments have policies which say you can't put anything into the cloud because it has a good chance of hitting a US controlled server and you would potentially have them accessing it.
Ever before this revelation came out, many people were pointing out that this was a very real possibility and likely already happening.
Now that it's been confirmed, people are suddenly realizing just how bad an idea it always was. But people have been identifying this as a risk for some time now.
This is a self inflicted injury.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
less foreigners == more american STEMs getting hired?
Or the work just gets done overseas. It is probably roughly 50 / 50.
Where it still gets spied on.
Californians voted for bigger, more intrusive government. They got it. They should accept the consequences.
Just California? Neither Gary Johnson nor Jill Stein won any states.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
I was recently at an IT conference in Geneva.
A speaker from a large company there warned those attending (mainly from Europe) to avoid US cloud companies because of NSA spying. Not just US-based servers, but also any company with SUPPORT STAFF located in the US as well, even if the servers are located outside of the US.
Reason 1 is the risk of private company information flowing to competitors through the NSA either officially or through corruption.
Reason 2 is the legal risk of falling afoul of EU privacy laws by hosting in the US or with US support staff.
That's the report from Europe folks. You can call it FUD, but it is there nonetheless.