Slashdot Mirror
Canada Quietly Offering Sanctuary To Data From the US
davecb writes "The Toronto Star's lead article today is Canada courting U.S. web giants in wake of NSA spy scandal, an effort to convince them their customer data is safer here. This follows related moves like Cisco moving R&D to Toronto. Industry Canada will neither confirm nor deny that European and U.S. companies are negotiating to move confidential data away from the U.S. This critically depends on recent blocking legislation to get around cases like U.S. v. Bank of Nova Scotia, where U.S. courts 'extradited' Canadian bank records to the U.S. Contrary to Canadian law, you understand ..."
They've been doing intelligence cooperation with the US for ages, why would they be any more trustworthy?
This is completely meaningless as long as any data has to traverse any network in the US. For that matter, I highly doubt that Canada or any other US ally won't actually cooperate with the NSA. This is nothing but a marketing move on Canada's part.
Our banks will release all personal information to US law enforcement, even though this directly contravenes our Constitution.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-banks-to-be-compelled-to-share-clients-info-with-u-s-1.2437975
.there is enough of everything for everyone.
Blame Canada!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The NSA et al are (legally) *more* restricted in the US than abroad. While there might be congressional hearings & other hand wringing about what the NSA does in the US, foreign countries are a cyber free fire zone. Information superiority is the goal, and the NSA has huge fire power ATM.
Security is an illusion people will pay for, so why not make a profit?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It seems we Canadians were playing lapdog to all this nonsense; so why would anyone send their data here. It also seems that the Canadian government is perfectly happy to send Canadian data and its citizens to face US justice. I was proud of Canada's history of protecting draft dodgers; but then we sent an Iraq dodger back and my pride died that day. Then Mark Emery thrown to the wolves by the Canadian government, and recently the Canadian government has begun sending all sorts of bank records south.
So if you put your data into a Canadian server then I suspect that the US will have full access to it a dozen different ways.
Personally if I were the head of IT for a large non North American company there are few countries that I would truly trust. For instance I might look into a Swiss IT company, but only if it were wholly Swiss owned, and only staffed by natural born Swiss citizens. But Canada, heck no.
Didn't Canadian inteligence agencies (along with the English and others) work WITH the NSA to get around the constitutional impediments to spying on Americans?
YES, when your personal data was stored here in America, the NSA reserved the right to look through it... but once the America public found about it (Thankyou Mr. Snowden), many people identified that right to be illegal and the debate started. While it might be illegal in Canada for the Canadian authorities to spy on Canadian citizens, does that necessarily make it illegal in Canada for Canadian authorities under direction from the NSA to spy on the data of non-Canadian citizens (i.e.: Americans) stored within their borders?
The more I read, the more I am convinced that in the end... Strong Cryptography for which the NSA (or anyone else) does _not_ have a backdoor may be the only way to protect privacy. I trust the math more than I trust governments.
This is completely meaningless as long as any data has to traverse any network in the US.
If I am exchanging data between Canada and any other place but the US, why would it traverse the US? If these companies want to do business with the rest of the world without being spied on by US agencies, being outside the US is a good place to start.
Whether that alone is enough is questionable, but it's a start and certainly not meaningless.
I thought most Canadian traffic is routed through Chicago or New York...
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
US companies shouldn't be able to shirk tax laws just by going to an overseas bank. This posits a false dichotomoy, where either you're in favor of the NSA, or you think multi-national companies should be able to avoid laws and regulations they don't like by doing all their extra-legal business in Canada or the Cayman islands or where tax laws/regulations are most convenient.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
That court case did nothing of the sort - it was a court case against a local US bank subsidiary asking for records of other subsidiaries in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands.
The real problem is the coming US FATCA law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance_Act
This US law requires foreign banks to provide information about accounts held by Americans, or ELSE.
Canada is not generally regarded as a tax haven - there is no bank secrecy here, no secret corporate ownership and Canada isn't a low-tax jurisdiction. Our taxes are higher than most of the USA.
There is a Canada-US tax treaty, and generally speaking US citizens living in Canada don't have to pay tax to the USA since they get an IRS deduction for the taxes they pay to Canada (they don't get taxed twice on the same income).
Under US law, all US citizens have to file with the IRS every year, even if they live in a foreign country and owe nothing in taxes.
However, for a Canadian bank to provide information about US customers to the IRS (absent a crime or court order) violates Canadian privacy law. So Canadian banks are in a very difficult position:
- comply with FATCA and break Canadian law
- get permission from their US customers to hand over info to the IRS
- don't do business with US citizens living in Canada (of which there are about a million)
ever walk down the street, and stumble, but mid-way turn it into a move that some part of you thinks will convince on-lookers that you did it on purpose? like you were just testing out a new dance move for the clubs? what - you mean those thousands of broken spent fuel rod assemblies? yeah - it's cool.. oh - and if you ask questions in japan on this, off to jail you go!
Don't large corporations control congress? Don't congress members want to stay in the good graces of corporations so they continue to get campaign donations and board positions upon retirement from public service?
Why aren't large corporations pressuring congress to reign in the NSA?
Who's holding the puppet strings?
Yeah, I'm Canadian. Canada has a pretty good "sharing" relationship with the US. It's a safe bet that if data is stored here we're pretty much just going to hand it to any US government org. that asks for it. I'd be willing to bet this is a scheme cooked up by the NSA because they know Canada will just roll over and hand the info back to them so they can just continue on business as usual. We're not really the confrontational types up here.
American citizens, come and host your data on canadian soil !
Therefore, it will technically be foreign data.
Therefore, the NSA will be able to spy on it without trespassing any law regulating spying on its own citizens.
Thanks for your cooperation.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
I think it would be worse for US to store their data in Canada because at that point, NSA is just spying on another country rather than in their own turf. Something that is in high scrutiny at the moment.
It's actually worse than just them rolling over.
See, Canadian operations are firmly within the jurisdiction of the NSA. So moving out of country makes you more hackable, not less.
CSEC Admits It 'Incidentally' Spies On Canadians
So, go to Europe then. Oh, that's right.
The German Prism: Berlin Wants to Spy Too
France - Alarm over massive spying provisions in new military programming law
Why is this going on? Is there some sort of pattern that could explain it?
Iran’s fingerprints in Fallujah
Report: Canadian Terrorists Planned Truck Bomb Attack
At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says
Dutch Arrest 12 Somalis on Terror Suspicions
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You know the Canadians will roll over on you, eh?
Please, sir (I say "sir", and I apologise if you are a "ma'am", ma'am), but on behalf of all Canadians, I urge you to consider that it is "politeness, pleasantries, civility, and common courtesy" that you misinterpret as "rolling over".
We simply rush to the front and open the door for you, sir/ma'am.
I hope I haven't offended you in any way, and I apologise for taking your time.
Thank you, and all the best, Godspeed.
The one detailing the case of U.S. vs Bank of Nova Scotia.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15359095430199898378&q=%E2%80%9Csimply+cannot+acquiesce+in+the+proposition+that+United+States+criminal+investigations+must+be+thwarted+whenever+there+is+conflict+with+the+interest+of+other+states.%E2%80%9D&hl=en&as_sdt=2006
The argument is premised on the idea that Americas largest multinational corporations are somehow so divorced from the legislative and governance process of the United States as to need to seek asylum in a foreign country.
companies only care about customer data if consumer market research data indicates negative shifts in earnings as a result of their inability to assauage customers of the validity, sanctity and security of their data. A prime example is the Target scandal recently. the cost to shore up security was probably much greater than the cost to issue apologies in the media. Target further mitigated the impact by using weasel words like "may have" or "possibly" when describing the outcome of their data breech. This in turn led the financial companies beholden to the cardholders to issue, of course, similar statements with a key advisory to "watch" your credit card, not to replace it which while effective would have been vastly more expensive for the financial company.
when companies face any real backlash from their customers, they legislate their way around it through the appropriate channels. AT&T demanded immunity from Bush wiretapping and received it. had they cared about your data, they would have fought the government to eliminate warrantless surveillance of this kind. But the law is ever on their side as they are the ones who craft it. Verizon lobbied extensively for stricter laws protecting arbitration clauses. They did it in response to a string of class action lawsuits related to overbilling customers. had they cared about the letter of the law, they would have made major changes and improvements to their billing system that prevented the plaintiffs from suffering the ridiculous mischarges in the first place.
Good people go to bed earlier.
No secret that the NSA works with Canada, New Zealand, UK and Australia on ECHELON so anything in those jurisdictions is easily subject to acquisition. Equally easy would be any jurisdiction in Commonwealth countries or countries that are desiring entry into the Commonwealth who would allow this on their soil just to curry favor with the UK.
What makes you think a hacked Cisco border router plugged into the Internet is any more secure in Canada? It's just a couple more hops, that is all.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
If you really care about keeping that data confidential, keep it in your own computers! If a government agency wants it, at least then you'll probably find out.
Thank you
Thank you kindly.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
- comply with FATCA and break Canadian law
- get permission from their US customers to hand over info to the IRS
- don't do business with US citizens living in Canada (of which there are about a million)
I fail to see how that puts the banks in a difficult situation. Canadian banks have no obligation to comply with US law; they do, however, have an obligation to comply with Canadian law.
The burden of compliance here rests entirely on those US citizens storing money in Canada. The Canadian banks simply need to join the EEA in telling the US to go fuck itself as regards the wholesale presumption of US hegemony over global AML regulations.
No matter where you move it, if you're sharing it on the internet there's a good chance it will touch some fiber or cable that is US jurisdiction. If that happens it can be seen, stored, and spied on at the NSA's leisure. Nothing is fixed, it's all PR smoke and mirrors.
To be precise, the case was one in which the US required the Bank of Nova Scotia's subsidiary in the US to duplicate records from the Cayman Islands, contrary to the laws of the Caymans and also of Canada, where the Bank is chartered. That's why I put quotes around the "extradited" (;-))
If the records were already in the 'States, there wouldn't have been reason for the Bank to object to a subpoena from a US grand jury.
Returning to your post, FATCA is indeed a problem, and IMHO is a US response to tightened blocking legislation in Canada. US business would be well pleased if it caused ScotiaBank to go away.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Trust nobody and you won't have to worry.
, said the man in the tin foil hat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA
Spoiler alert: Canada is one of them.
Canadian operations are firmly within the jurisdiction of the NSA.
So? They don't seem to let that keep them from spying in the US.
moving out of country makes you more hackable
Not necessarily. Hacking is easier when you can operate inside US operations, with the cooperation of management.
Its an interesting catch22; moving the data out of the US theorectically elevates the legitimacy of any NSA attack on it, since its now a legitimate attack on 'foreign signals'.
On the other hand thanks to the rampant domestic abuse, and undermining of local legal protection, at least moving it outside the country requires the NSA actually attack it rather than just help themselves.
All that is assuming the Canadian's won't be complict sharing the data; but to my knowledge at least, that would still require somebody attack it as Canada doesn't seem to have quite the same degree of "give us your all data, don't tell anyone you are doing it, because: national security".
Is it a marketing move? Absolutely.
But it does still have some real impact; and really if you want the US to change its habits, an economic angle is really the best way to get their attention.
And that is what we call a Canadian burn, Eh!? ;)
What were previously known as tin foil hat types have been vindicated by recent revealed information. They've gone from being laughed at to being able to say "I told you so".
To spy in the US, though, they need a FISA rubber stamp. So there's a record of it, somewhere, supposedly.
To spy in Canada, they just need to push the button.
If it were my company, I would have all the realms under my own authority as much as possible. Nobody could be served a warrant without my knowing about it. So no data centers, vendors, or other third parties with access to my systems, and they'd need to be in the US.
This way were any of my data seized there's just cause to go looking for a copy of the warrant.
Moving it to Canada just means you've removed the necessity to get a warrant at all.
If a company has rights, it also has the obligation to fight for it's rights, not run to Canada. Those companies shouldn't be allowed to operate in the USA.
The companies don't just transfer money from one bank account to another...it's way more complicated. One way is to pay an offshore subsidiary huge amounts of money for relatively little actual work. They can then call that a "cost" in the USA and reduce taxes owing, then show the profits in another country with lower taxes.
The banks do business in the USA. If the Canadian side didn't cooperate, then the American side would presumably be targeted by the government.
I think it would be worse for US to store their data in Canada because at that point, NSA is just spying on another country rather than in their own turf. Something that is in high scrutiny at the moment.
Excellant point. Data stored abroad would not necessarily be afforded the same legal protections as data stored in the US. Even given the recent revelations companies should take that into consideration as well.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Somebody didn't bother reading his own link. There, information was requested from the American branch of a Canadian bank, seeking information about American customers where the files resided in the Caymans.
False. There is an obligation on US citizens, but there is ALSO a new requirement on the foreign banks under FATCA.
That only applies to banks choosing to do business in the US, whether or not the US says otherwise. Though as you point out, most banks do choose to do some of their business in the US.
Actually, the EEA hasn't said that at all. Many foreign banks are choosing to not do business with US citizens since that is an easier solution.
Nonbinding at this point, but yes, they have said exactly that.
I don't trust the tin foil makers. What can I do?
That court case did nothing of the sort - it was a court case against a local US bank subsidiary asking for records of other subsidiaries in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands.
I came in here to address this issue.
An interesting quote (emphasis mine) from the linked-to case:
Over all I do hope that more data is moved to Canada (hence more jobs here), and the Canadian governments, federal and provincial, strengthen their determination (and regulations) to keep sensitive citizens' data out of the USA.
How about a nice, fat trans-Canada fibre optic cable, all within our borders? I imagine the spending on the advertisements for the "Canada Action Plan" would've paid for a good deal of it...
Not really.
Being crazy and then happening to be right doesn't make you less crazy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So unless Google, Facebook, and the like are no longer going to be US-based companies (which I doubt will happen, especially given that they are publicly traded), and decide to shut down all operations in the US, things like the Patriot Act & wiretapping laws would still compel these companies to hand over data, despite the data center sitting on Canadian soil--or anywhere else in the world... Remember that Microsoft refused to answer questions about whether law enforcement had backdoors into Skype calls, after M$ picked up Skype. Pre-takeover, when Skype was an Estonian company, US-required backdoors didn't exist & couldn't be compelled, so the NSA had to hack to get the data...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
Canadian operations are firmly within the jurisdiction of the NSA.
So? They don't seem to let that keep them from spying in the US.
moving out of country makes you more hackable
Not necessarily. Hacking is easier when you can operate inside US operations, with the cooperation of management.
Pfft. Acquiring data by coercion is not hacking. Acquiring data by force is. And to that, the NSA clearly feels a lot less encumbered when they are working internationally, because they dont have the threat of legal recourse hanging over their heads. The precedent has been set, if you hack across a border it is understood that it's "no questions asked" because not only do you not want to know the answer, you don't even want to know the question. This has been going on for years between superpowers. Read any book about e-brinksmanship with China, Russia, Iran, etc for more about how tight-lipped but permissive all countries involved are.
Canadian banks have no obligation to comply with US law
They do if they operate in the USA. I know RBC does.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
To spy in the US, though, they need a FISA rubber stamp. So there's a record of it, somewhere, supposedly.
About that ... The federal government has acknowledged that FISA is signing warrants that do not name the person or company whose data is to be gathered. There used to be a red-letter name for that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettre_de_cachet
Our rights are slowly being eroded thanks to Harper. The actual government won't be happy until we are a police state.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
To spy in the US, though, they need a FISA rubber stamp.
Since you already called it a rubber stamp, all I need say is that I agree.
If it were my company, I would have all the realms under my own authority as much as possible. Nobody could be served a warrant without my knowing about it.
Are you sure that's a good idea? Plausible deniability has it's uses.
This way were any of my data seized there's just cause to go looking for a copy of the warrant.
They don't seize your data like it was a physical item, they just make a copy of it. Usually that's surreptitious, so you don't even know it's happened. Look up things like recognized "national security exceptions" to the 4th Amendment.
And it was a major aspect of British tyranny that we fought a revolution to get rid of. What a shame these things aren't mentioned in textbooks on American history. Oh, wait ...
Yeah, that won't work for example: Hushmail folded like a house of cards.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Being crazy and then happening to be right doesn't make you less crazy.
They were called crazy precisely because of the things they said that "just happened" to be right. Where I come from repeatedly getting things right is called a good track record. It should make you question your original assumption about them being crazy.
Yes but it enables and encourages the crazy which is never a good thing.
Don't worry about it. The NSA and our illustrious elected officials won't change regardless of whether they're "enabled and encouraged".
They'll just let the NSA know that the national password is 'bacon' and it's back to spying as usual.
Yeah, my site is hosted in Canada. I'm waiting for a visit from them wanting to know how I knew who the Area 51 Grays really were and who really killed Kennedy.
Free Martian Whores!
I think it would be worse for US to store their data in Canada because at that point, NSA is just spying on another country rather than in their own turf. Something that is in high scrutiny at the moment.
The seems to be spying on their own turf as well, so I don't see that there's much of a difference. :/
Also, given that both countries are part of the Five Eyes collective, I think they're less likely to go into Canadian territory (at least not without asking). They'd probably just get CSEC to do the work instead.
Unfortunately, Canada is just as bad. This would be especially true if you were a US citizen. They claim to go through "great pains to anonymize domestic communications" (which is likely not true) making all foreign (ie. US) communications fair game.
Canada will also never refuse an extradition request to the US, or any of it's allies. A special circumstance is made for "political refugees" but I'd be completely surprised if some bullshit trumped up terrorism charges couldn't override that.
So, US companies need to look elsewhere to harbor their data. And I say this as a somewhat less-proud Canadian citizen than I was a decade ago.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
It WOULD technically be legal for the NSA to hack their way into these out-of-country systems, even if they know they are targeting data on American's, but they don't have to. We are America's lap dogs, and we are happy to just hand over the data on request. We have even weaker laws regarding this than the US, and even worse press coverage about what CSIS is doing [basically a combination of CIA and NSA].
There is a reason why the President uses a BlackBerry and that the US NEVER complained about not being able to access BB messages like India and Saudi Arabia did. We bent over and spread 'em wide.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
The difference is, when your data is stored in the US, the US can pass laws saying that the data has to be handed over, and the companies holding it for you can't tell you. If it's in Canada, there are two options.
First, Canada rolls over and requires the data be sent to the US. Of course, we don't currently have laws to require that, or for us to be silent about it if it does happen. Granted, we have the notwithstanding clause, which allows plenty of leeway, but not so much that they can emplace gag orders or warrantless searches.
Second, the Canadian company holding your data knowingly and actively does all it can to stop the unlawful access of your data, and responds if there are attempted breaches. Note that this will not and can not happen in the US as things currently stand.
At worst, it will be no different from having your data in the US. At best, you may have actual corporate security.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
The US Constitution - as you no doubt have figured out by now - doesn't.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I don't trust the tin foil makers. What can I do?
Switch to cellophane. The tin foil acts as an antenna anyway.
Godspeed.
One has to wonder, would a meth-addicted God be better or worse than the incomptetent one currently holding sway?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Really, who is dumb enough to trust a country that's right in there with the US and is part of the 5 eyes group. Typical Canada, it pretends it's the nice guy but it's just as bad as anyone else.
I was about to write an angry reply, but it's too cold outside to care.
Signed, a fellow Canadian.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Silly. Every major country has multiple agencies that conduct Internet espionage. Canada, for example.
1) Canadian privacy laws are MUCH stronger here.
2) Canada does not have laws like the Patriot Act, and others that facilitate government getting at your data legally.
Our current PM seems to want to bend over backwards to do anything the US wants, but is still constrained by law (he isn't King of Canada just yet).
Our intelligence agency, has had a couple of incidents where they "shared" information with the US. In at least one of these cases they are getting sued in a pretty big way, and will probably lose.
Years ago I looked into hosting data on the cloud, but it was pretty much impossible considering concern for privacy law, and the fact that most of the companies hosting cloud services have their servers in the US, and the US had just passed the Patriot Act, which allowed them potentially too much access at a whim. Since then that act has been amended to give more powers, and new acts have been introduced (and passed?) that further erode privacy.
The big difference is that in the US, much of your data is legally obtainable by the US government. In Canada it is not. Were they to share it (government or otherwise), it would be at the very least a privacy breach and illegal. There are ways to legally get at data within Canada, but usually involve a more rigorous process to obtain it.
LOL!
Actually read the article. Which basically says that the NSA stuff with Snowden has made the perception of the US and privacy bad for cloud hosted services.
Canada better privacy laws and...
skilled workforce,
COLD CLIMATE
relatively cheap sources of electricity,
make it ideal for companies to relocate data centers dedicated to cloud services to Canada.
Heh, I suppose with the Cold Climate it would make cooling the data center less of an issue... :) Anyway made me laugh a bit. Though executives might not want to ever come visit facilities if last week -35 degree weather is the norm.
the NSA will be able to spy on it without trespassing any law regulating spying on its own citizens
How do we figure this? Supposedly spying on foreigners INSIDE America is OK, so why would spying on citizens OUTSIDE be legally acceptable? I thought it was about who is being spied on, not where the information is...
Godspeed.
One has to wonder, would a meth-addicted God be better or worse than the incomptetent one currently holding sway?
So you want to have a dictatorial god that forces everyone to do everything his way? Is that what you actually want? It is awfully easy to sidestep personal responsibility and morality if you instead decide to blame god for everything bad that men do.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
It WOULD technically be legal for the NSA to hack their way into these out-of-country systems...
Under Canadian law? If not, what are the chances that the crackers would be extradited?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
wrong mod, posting to kill
No country that recognizes the US as a sovereign entity is technically allowed to apply their internal laws to agents of the US Government. The definition of a sovereign entity is that it is the fucking law in your little bailiwick. If other countries have a problem with what a sovereign country they can do damn near anything (nuclear weapons, diplomatic notes, the random shit the Indians are doing to protest their Consul being arrested, etc.), except apply their domestic law codes to the agents of that country. International Tribunals are permissible, but Canada arresting an NSA guy because of something he did in Canada that was legal under both US Law and international law is not.
In other words if you;re talking about what the NSA can legally do the only things that are relevant are a) the Constitution, b) the specific statutes Congress has passed authorizing the NSA, c) the orders/regulations issued by the President, and d) international treaties which the US has ratified. If the Fourth Amendment says we can hack Canada, and Congress says hacking Canada is the NSA's job, and the President (or his appointees) hack Canada the NSA dudes who hack Canada can;t be punished for anything by Canada.
Canadian operations are firmly within the jurisdiction of the NSA.
So? They don't seem to let that keep them from spying in the US.
They do plenty of things in the US they wouldn't do in Canada. Bother with FISA warrants for one thing. Another is they actually try to figure out whether you're American before spying on you.
Granted they don't have to work hard to fulfill either requirement, but something is always harder to do then nothing. And in Canada they have to do precisely nothing.
moving out of country makes you more hackable
Not necessarily. Hacking is easier when you can operate inside US operations, with the cooperation of management.
You do realize the management in Canada is Stephen Harper? AKA: the guy who tried to send Canadian troops to Iraq?
The NSA can get his help to do anything simply by muttering the word "Islamo-Fascist" three times. And he's got a lot more powers then the US Government.
Harper will probably lose the next election, but he's got a majorioty so he can delay that thru 2015 if he wants. And his potential replacement (Trudeau Jr.) is a little better, but still isn't likely to send a "fuck the NSA letter" to Obama.
It doesn't have to be true, just marketable. This is about winning customers. Ruin the marketability of that statement and you ruin their stupid attempt at a false sense of security and then maybe we can move on to an actual solution. If people have faith in this, it derails true security.
Twinstiq, game news
If some guy was setting up a social network in Canada to replace facebook, and some CanMail company was replacing gmail, you would have an excellent point. Nobody is talking about hiring Canadian companies to host their data in a format that they can't access from their office in the Valley.
They're talking about a) building server-farms they own, or b) hiring Canadian server-farms. In either case if the Canadians start protecting data the Feds can simply get a FISA order sent to the main office, and since the main office can access that data the Feds will get their hands on it. The Canadians running the server-farm have no idea what the data is being sent to the Valley for, they just some guy's account is being accessed from HQ. For all they know he's visiting HQ, or some tech support drone has been granted temporary access.
... International Tribunals are permissible, but Canada arresting an NSA guy because of something he did in Canada that was legal under both US Law and international law is not. ...
Looking for clarification, are you also saying:
... International Tribunals are permissible, but USA arresting a Canadian guy because of something he did in USA that was legal under both Canadian Law and international law is not. ...
I
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
As long as he's a Canadian Agent acting under orders from his government that are legal under international law then yes.
The weird thing is that we never violate the letter of this particular requirement, and we only violate the spirit once every couple decades. It is literally true that we violate the international rule against attacking countries for BS the President made up more often then we violate the rule on when you can arrest their officials. In fact the only time I can think of was the war to remove Noriega, followed by him being arrested by the US, but that was covered by a loophole because the guys we put in charge of Panama agreed to waive his immunity.
If he was a god he wouldnt have to force you, he would have designed you to do it and thought it was your own free will from the start.
I think you are a bit confused. Free will cannot be free will without the possibility of choosing the wrong decision. What is it with you people? You complain when you feel that other people are infringing on your freedoms but then you complain that god gives you the ability to make mistakes. Sure, god could have created man with no free will but what would be the point? We are not androids. We are living beings who are not god so we are capable of making the wrong choice.
You seem to want contradictory things. If god is like a parent to his children (humanity), wouldn't you expect the parent to allow his children to grow and have the opportunity to make the right choices eventually?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Yes, the point about Google and Facebook is perfectly valid. In that case, people are dreaming or happily wearing their rose-coloured glasses. But this story was also about non-American corporations (i.e., not headquartered in the US) looking for non-American hosting (i.e., not hosted in the US) so that FISA warrants became a non-issue.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?