Didn’t even Microsoft say that they can’t guarantee that they can follow these laws? Because the US laws take over. So, legal entities are just some smoke screen. They don’t help if the US government wants access to something.
I’m not sure what has happened since then or the legal status of this issue.
I think interdependence is a good thing, but I think the EU is _reliant_ on the US militarily and economically and that's ... not great particularly when the US leadership is openly hostile toward Europe (and toward the US for that matter). I'm speaking as an American.
International commerce and business and shared democratic norms are a fscking good things. We have lost the people who learned that the hard way, and they are being replaced with people who have never read a history book.
Name one country with a large military force that done more good than bad with it? Seems to come with the territory that if you have a large military force, you somehow need to use it for something as otherwise it falls into disrepair, and that "something" tends to be trying to spread your culture one way or another.
Come to think of it, seems China is the only country so far (in modern times) that haven't abused their military to enforce their will on smaller countries, basically every other superpower been abusing their military to make the world worse.
Philippines would disagree with this one.
That's... how EU works, intentionally? It's a decentralized union more or less, we're still independent countries with our own laws and what not, each country have their own command and control structure for their own military, on purpose.
Specifically, the problem of how those states can individually choose to plug their forces into a practiced system of military coordination.
Today, they can do that with NATO, but if they want an alternative, it doesn't exist and it will be difficult to build.
or are european saying china is better than US ????
Not being able to stand on our own feet is going to be a major problem because of the implied soft power. It nerfs our ability to ever have a spine on any issue.
I do remember the last time the USA did. It was hours ago at a NATO summit.
or Tibet?
You are comparing sensational trolls with actual geopolitical history.
And admittedly I didn’t realize Taiwan was in Europe. Sorry.
-MAGA Right before Trump tried to steal the 2020 election, militarily occupy US cities, annul various amendments, start the Iran War, etc.
Should we casually throw around all places the US invaded too?
no one take Trump seriously
You might not take their words as a true statement of fact, but the situation going on is still pretty damn serious!
And the patriot act exists, so this is not just a theoretical worry. Meaning as an EU citizen I would like to ban US vendors completely till you guys get your house in order again. Not that we don't have our own wanna be autocrats and surveillance-lovers, but I think having authocratic laws should have consequences for the businesses in any country.
I don't think it's a matter of "resisting or not", they literally have no choice and can typically also not tell anyone because of gag orders. That's why things like Amazon's "EU Cloud" isn't really interesting to anyone in EU and Europe, ultimately there is a US entity that easily folds in favor of the US government, and there isn't much you can do about it unless you stay 100% clear from US entities with your data.
Not that I think our governments in Europe are much better, time and time again they demonstrate they don't care one iota about personal privacy of individuals, so I wouldn't be surprised European companies wouldn't resist even requests.
I would not rule out there are organizations/companies in the US who would rather give up their business than fold to the pressure, which is why I let this open. I know there are some US entities who have public carnary style notices ("We have not been visited by a government agency, ..."), with the idea being that while they can compell you to not say a thing, they can't force you to say a thing. How well that would work in practise, I dunno, but it shows that some in the US anticipate the issue and at least signal to care about it.
But in the end I agree with you, the safer route for people in the EU is to not deal with this risk to begin with.
I wouldn't rule that out either, but also to be entirely realistic, AFAIK, there been one (Lavabit) company in the last twenty-or-so years that went the way of quitting the business instead of just complying. People nowadays seem even less to give up profits in the name of principles, so I'd also wouldn't be surprised basically no one actually doesn't fold.