This may be naive, and if it is please elaborate; but as the NSA is a branch of the USA's government, it has legal power over companies in the USA and over infrastructure in the USA. Their legal writ does not hold in Germany for instance. I'm interested in seeing how this whole "broke German law on German soil" thing plays out: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nsa-s-alleged-spying-on-merkel-...
The NSA's methods of surveiling the internet seems to have been to tap into "destination" data centres in the USA, and to tap into all passing traffic as it crosses US borders. If internet traffic passes through neither of those checkpoints (e.g. originates in Leipzig, goes to a server in Berlin) then the NSA will find it a lot harder to tap it. Not impossible, but a lot harder to do it and lot harder to make a convincing legal justification.
This leaves aside the impact of the sharing agreements between the "five eyes", that basically the UK et al are doing the same thing as the NSA here.
The second problem is of "American" companies which operate worldwide. Even if the server is in Berlin, no doubt the US government will lean on the US parent company, if there is one. Which is why we're seeing stories like this one.
This may be naive, and if it is please elaborate; but as the NSA is a branch of the USA's government, it has legal power over companies in the USA and over infrastructure in the USA. Their legal writ does not hold in Germany for instance. I'm interested in seeing how this whole "broke German law on German soil" thing plays out: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nsa-s-alleged-spying-on-merkel-...
The NSA's methods of surveiling the internet seems to have been to tap into "destination" data centres in the USA, and to tap into all passing traffic as it crosses US borders. If internet traffic passes through neither of those checkpoints (e.g. originates in Leipzig, goes to a server in Berlin) then the NSA will find it a lot harder to tap it. Not impossible, but a lot harder to do it and lot harder to make a convincing legal justification.
This leaves aside the impact of the sharing agreements between the "five eyes", that basically the UK et al are doing the same thing as the NSA here.
The second problem is of "American" companies which operate worldwide. Even if the server is in Berlin, no doubt the US government will lean on the US parent company, if there is one. Which is why we're seeing stories like this one.