US Officials: EU’s NSA-Proof Communications System Violates Trade Laws

Move Would Be 'Unfair' to NSA-Linked US Tech Companies

Instead of trying to soothe international fears of the NSA global surveillance schemes, the Obama Administration is angrily lashing out at Europe for its attempts to counter the surveillance, insisting it’s totally not fair.

The office of the US Trade Representative hit out at the Deutsche Telekom proposal to create an EU-centric communications system to cut the NSA out of the loop on intra-European phone and email conversations. Both Germany and France are said to be on board in a big way for the plan.

The US is claiming the move would be a “violation” of international trade laws, and would put US technology companies, particularly those that have been revealed to be in league with the NSA, at an “unfair” disadvantage to European companies.

The US Trade Representative office was similarly riled by Canada’s own internal email system, which aimed to store data inside Canada to prevent NSA snooping. They argued that with everything moving to the “cloud” these days the Canadian move was damaging to the market leaders, who are not coincidentally all US companies involved with the NSA Prism program.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is news editor of