NSA Spying Hurts California's Business 277
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)."
What're you gonna do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seccede from the union? Then you're just as much a furriner to the NSA as the rest of the world. And thus fair game to spying operations that have gotten a little out of hand. To the point that you can no longer say "don't do that" to the people doing it. It is so much out of control that you have to shut down the machine entirely and scap it. And please don't rebuild it, not even from scratch.
This also shows how utterly provincial the USoA really is. It takes an outlier like California to look outside the borders with anything but thinly-veiled suspicion. And that also means that the USoA is not really fit for playing the world's neighbourhood cop, since that is a position of trust, not power. It doesn't surprise, then, that there's quite a difference between how the rest of the world sees what it's done and the stellar job it itself thinks it has done.
Monday (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a Monday, and /. is stating the bleedin' obvious.
What's less obvious is how much NSA snooping hurts US companies. I doubt it's nearly enough to be able to call it a justification for dismantling the infrastructure.
Don't complain (Score:5, Interesting)
German citizen here, and one working it IT Security for almost two decades now. I have been advocating the use of strong encryption and keeping the crown jewels "in the house" to my employers and customers all the time, but managers would often not listen in order to save the odd buck on the next outsourcing deal.
By launching and funding the spy programmes the US government has willingly accepted possibly detrimental effects on the economy.
In my opinion it serves the US companies right that finally the time has come that companies and people all over the world actually start looking at whom they make business with. The USA have decided to spy on every single person on this planet - OK, but now don't complain that this hurts your economy. If US companies don't like what's happening then they should complain to your government and make them change things.
A lot of trust has been destroyed, and it will take the US economy some effort to regain it. Work hard, and maybe some day in the future I will no longer advise my customers and friends to avoid US services.
What about american stock holders? (Score:5, Interesting)
We repeatedly hear that NSA is spying for industrial reasons. To give advantage to American companies. But the NYSE is full of foreign companies that are traded here. And those companies are in complex derivative markets. And the retirement portfolios of Americans. If its an truly international market now, but American companies are benefiting from the spying, then Americans are being hurt. Perhaps the difference is that foreign companies cannot contribute to politicians and political parties. Maybe that is the difference.
Re:So this means more jobs for American STEMs? (Score:5, Interesting)
less foreigners == more american STEMs getting hired?
Or the work just gets done overseas. It is probably roughly 50 / 50.
Unlikely. Trade has to be a huge net benefit otherwise it doesn't get done because the companies that are involved in it have to cover huge costs (transport; multinational lawyers; dealing with multiple regulations; insurance; security people; translations; business travel for sales; moving support people etc.). From the point of view of the place that it's done in, all those costs are employed people.
Furthermore, one country trades with many. Thus, for California which is effectively a trade hub, especially for IT services, the benefit is disproportionate.
In any case, this is unlikely in any way to influence the influx of poorer than you Indian workers coming for money. It's rather going to influence richer than you German and Swiss companies trying to buy things off you. When the company heads know that their customers might be spied on then they are breaking the law by outsourcing to the US. They may end up in jail and they have to move their work away from the US.
Difficult case in my view. The US approach that you shouldn't let your data be gathered, but once it is you have no control is not working. The European approach that the data should be under full control of the person who owns it clearly doesn't work properly for secret services. No idea how you restore trust now.
Re:Reason for secrecy (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why it was necessary to keep the programs secret and why the leaks didn't do any good.
First of all, you had good reason to post anonymously: you should be ashamed of yourself. Secondly, your comment brings two quotes to mind:
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." — Eric Schmidt
"Security through obscurity is no security at all." — Bruce Schneier
That the revelation of these expensive, ineffectual, unethical, and unconstitutional programs may have harmful repercussions for national security and the economy is not (in my opinion) a good argument for secrecy, but an excellent argument for not starting such programs, shutting the existing ones down, and not starting similar ones in the future.
Not a bit (Score:2, Interesting)
There's not going to be any problem with anyone hosting anything in the US. What do you think all these lovely "trade agreements" are about?
The NSA will promise to "partner" with friendly foreign intelligence services and it will all be one big happy family except daddy has his hand under your skirt.
I guess the best we can hope for now is that there are some more brave whistleblowers out there who will risk their lives to keep this story front and center. And if that fails, the best we can hope for is that there are some brave saboteurs.
Killing puppies is a cost of business. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not the point. If you are not going to transact business in a country specifically over the concern about your puppies being killed, you should be aware of which other countries kill puppies as a matter of routine governmental intelligence gathering. And by which others, I mean all of them. In fact, I would say that any country who doesn't kill puppies as part of their internal intelligence operations either has no significant stake in world affairs or is lying. Killing puppies is a fact of modern intelligence gathering; no, let me restate that - killing puppies has always been a fact of all intelligence gathering: governmental, corporate, and private.
To pull out of a country over a "moral issue" and then to ignore such moral issues occurring everywhere else is just grandstanding.
Re:Killing puppies is a cost of business. (Score:3, Interesting)
Nonsense. There's a HUGE difference between being spied on by our own government which IS accountable to us, ultimately, and some foreign superpower that isn't. Sorry but that's the crux of it. We can do something about the first situation, democratically. What can we do about that bunch of evil sociopaths you voted in? Not a damn thing.
It's already happening. Watch your cloud providers collapse, and you brought it on yourselves. Well done (slow handclap).
Don't be stupid (Score:1, Interesting)
We are all "foreigners" (Earthlings).
I stopped using all US based services (to maximum possible), from this Spy show (Snow..) . This includes:
- Google
- Microsoft
- Apple
- HP
- Oracle
- Amazon
- Facebook
- Skype
- Twitter
- Any US Web Hosting or SaaS
Which I consider now Hostile entities. I also distrust anything US Based for now on. As a manager and advisor to Companies, I will either enforce this ban or advise this ban on Security grounds. And believe me that's a considerable amount. If the rest of the world does likes this, you can say BYE BYE to silicon valley industry.
I advise you to presure your government to backoff or pay the price of your tirany.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Tip of the iceberg (Score:4, Interesting)