You do realise that the UK government is, and always has been, notorious for surveillance. They haven't changed since before WW2 and probably never will, even if Apple suddenly decides to play hardball with them.
And to be very, very honest, if you look across the Five Eyes nations, I don't think this is much different from what other countries deal with when it comes to access to data. You had PRISM, the trick of asking other countries for access to their own citizens data to avoid scrutiny, and Apple delaying the implementation of E2E in the US after federal agencies got pissed about it. The list goes on for a long time. At least in the UK, the government is so detached from commoners hurt feelings that they ask for what they want explicitly, with no fear of political consequences.
He was stuck in an airport when his passport got cancelled. It's not really a free choice if you can't go anywhere else, and planes suspected of carrying you get forced to land, even if by virtue of being denied airspace access until they run out of fuel.
freedom to _what_? Corruption is high, media is pretty restricted under Orban, and it doesn't look all that great for freely expressing your identity either. Whether Poland will follow their direction or manage to turn around is still up in the air.
You're only more "free" there if you have the money to bribe officials.
Snowden didn’t go to Russia because of the government there “valuing personal freedoms,” he went there bevause it is one of the very few major countries that absolutely will not cooperate with any extradition requests from western countries.
If you are thinking of going to east europe (and especially Russia) in search of personal freedoms, I got a bridge to sell you (for context, I grew up in Russia). The only “freedom” some of those countries might provide is the freedom from the long reach of the hands of western governments (and even that is a “maybe”, as Andrew Tate has been discovering recently).
Kremlin has full access to every service operating in Russia. If a service is banned in Russia, that's a service you should use. If it's not banned, it already has a backdoor.
The United States has the strongest laws for freedom of speech. You can't get arrested and face years of criminal legal trials, ending in an £800 fine for making a joke with your dog in America. Police won't show up at your house for Facebook posts like they do in Aussiestan. American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to use your own blood donors for the operation.
It's been degrading in the US too. Xitter is not at all a free speech platform and that technocrat says whatever he has to for popularity until he can chip your brain. Cutting a few million in wasteful government spending doesn't make up for how he loves China and deeply desires their level of autocracy.
America's laws have somehow held in-spite of presidents that seek to crush it (yes, both of them, both sides. They're the same. Stop believing the headlines and read the damn articles). Although defamation law has been weaponized to neuter some forms of speech and reporting.
There is an internal push by the CIA in America to further destabilize it and cause radical elements in the fake-left and fake-right to call for more authoritarianism. It's not a great nation, but sadly it is the last bastion of true liberty .. and it's eroding every day from every side.
In 20 years there might not be anywhere to flee to. Fight for your country. They can't put every British person in prison if everyone decided to tell the truth.
Dubai, even as an international hub where you may be able to get by with English — لا تضيع وقتك باستخدام دولينجو لتعلم اللغة العربية، لقد حاولت خلال الوباء وما زلت لا أعرف الأبجدية — is much more authoritarian than the UK. Similar for Singapore.
If you're monolingual, and privacy is your concern, then the US is an improvement over Australia.
But also consider Canada and Ireland.
Ireland isn't in Five Eyes, Canada is, but also Canada is slightly further away from the madness of Trump etc. than any company still inside the USA.
I'm not even sure what's going to happen with the US federal government given that DOGE cannot meet its stated goals even by deleting all discretionary-budget federal agencies like the NSA, CIA, FBI, all branches of the armed forces, etc. but on the other hand the private sector is busy doing a huge volume of spying anyway in the name of selling adverts… chaos is impossible to predict, and you should want to predict things at least a few years out if you're going to the trouble of relocating.
That's true, and I suspect Ireland does not do as much surveillance as many other countries, but if I recall correctly, it does have a passphrase-or-prison law like the UK. I also get the sense that in a number of cases, it tends to view its laws as suggestions, for example, with the autism dossiers scandal [1], and in some sense, gets away with it in the way that a small country can. To me, it feels like a country where you don't need to worry about organized, systemic surveillance abuses, but do need to worry about departments or even individual employees who decide that they just don't like you.
Belgium's EU presidency was pushing for Chat Control (on-device scanning of all your messages). Hungary took over and was pushing for the same. Poland took over and is proposing changes. Denmark has been in favor of the original proposal and is taking over in July 2025.
Ireland might be easy option.
UK citizens do not need a visa or residency permit to live and work in Ireland due to the Common Travel Area (CTA) agreement
You do realise that the UK government is, and always has been, notorious for surveillance. They haven't changed since before WW2 and probably never will, even if Apple suddenly decides to play hardball with them.
And to be very, very honest, if you look across the Five Eyes nations, I don't think this is much different from what other countries deal with when it comes to access to data. You had PRISM, the trick of asking other countries for access to their own citizens data to avoid scrutiny, and Apple delaying the implementation of E2E in the US after federal agencies got pissed about it. The list goes on for a long time. At least in the UK, the government is so detached from commoners hurt feelings that they ask for what they want explicitly, with no fear of political consequences.
The fact that it's always sucked is precisely why I want to leave.
If you value personal freedoms, you should go to East Europe. The more to the east, the better. Snowden went to Russia.
> Snowden went to Russia.
He was stuck in an airport when his passport got cancelled. It's not really a free choice if you can't go anywhere else, and planes suspected of carrying you get forced to land, even if by virtue of being denied airspace access until they run out of fuel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
freedom to _what_? Corruption is high, media is pretty restricted under Orban, and it doesn't look all that great for freely expressing your identity either. Whether Poland will follow their direction or manage to turn around is still up in the air.
You're only more "free" there if you have the money to bribe officials.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roskomnadzor
Snowden didn’t go to Russia because of the government there “valuing personal freedoms,” he went there bevause it is one of the very few major countries that absolutely will not cooperate with any extradition requests from western countries.
If you are thinking of going to east europe (and especially Russia) in search of personal freedoms, I got a bridge to sell you (for context, I grew up in Russia). The only “freedom” some of those countries might provide is the freedom from the long reach of the hands of western governments (and even that is a “maybe”, as Andrew Tate has been discovering recently).
Kremlin has full access to every service operating in Russia. If a service is banned in Russia, that's a service you should use. If it's not banned, it already has a backdoor.
Dublin?
Depends on what you’re after * Australia * United States * Singapore * Dubai * Europe (Belgium/Switzerland/Netherlands)
If you're after freedom, you absolutely do not want Singapore or Dubai.
The United States has the strongest laws for freedom of speech. You can't get arrested and face years of criminal legal trials, ending in an £800 fine for making a joke with your dog in America. Police won't show up at your house for Facebook posts like they do in Aussiestan. American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to use your own blood donors for the operation.
It's been degrading in the US too. Xitter is not at all a free speech platform and that technocrat says whatever he has to for popularity until he can chip your brain. Cutting a few million in wasteful government spending doesn't make up for how he loves China and deeply desires their level of autocracy.
America's laws have somehow held in-spite of presidents that seek to crush it (yes, both of them, both sides. They're the same. Stop believing the headlines and read the damn articles). Although defamation law has been weaponized to neuter some forms of speech and reporting.
There is an internal push by the CIA in America to further destabilize it and cause radical elements in the fake-left and fake-right to call for more authoritarianism. It's not a great nation, but sadly it is the last bastion of true liberty .. and it's eroding every day from every side.
In 20 years there might not be anywhere to flee to. Fight for your country. They can't put every British person in prison if everyone decided to tell the truth.
5 replies →
Australia is the worst of all
Australia is even more everyone-is-a-cop than the UK, and is doing this exact same shit for the exact same reason.
Of the whole list, if the Investigatory Powers Act is what you didn't like, I'd pick Switzerland first, then Belgium/Netherlands.
Of course, that assumes you're fluent in the local languages. Hoe goed spreekt u Nederlands?
I made a jump to Germany in 2018, and, thanks to learning a new language, have had a front-row seat to how flat the real Dunning Kruger effect really is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dunning–Kruger_Effect2.sv...
Dubai, even as an international hub where you may be able to get by with English — لا تضيع وقتك باستخدام دولينجو لتعلم اللغة العربية، لقد حاولت خلال الوباء وما زلت لا أعرف الأبجدية — is much more authoritarian than the UK. Similar for Singapore.
If you're monolingual, and privacy is your concern, then the US is an improvement over Australia.
But also consider Canada and Ireland.
Ireland isn't in Five Eyes, Canada is, but also Canada is slightly further away from the madness of Trump etc. than any company still inside the USA.
I'm not even sure what's going to happen with the US federal government given that DOGE cannot meet its stated goals even by deleting all discretionary-budget federal agencies like the NSA, CIA, FBI, all branches of the armed forces, etc. but on the other hand the private sector is busy doing a huge volume of spying anyway in the name of selling adverts… chaos is impossible to predict, and you should want to predict things at least a few years out if you're going to the trouble of relocating.
>Ireland isn't in Five Eyes,
That's true, and I suspect Ireland does not do as much surveillance as many other countries, but if I recall correctly, it does have a passphrase-or-prison law like the UK. I also get the sense that in a number of cases, it tends to view its laws as suggestions, for example, with the autism dossiers scandal [1], and in some sense, gets away with it in the way that a small country can. To me, it feels like a country where you don't need to worry about organized, systemic surveillance abuses, but do need to worry about departments or even individual employees who decide that they just don't like you.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Health_autism_...
> then Belgium/Netherlands
Belgium's EU presidency was pushing for Chat Control (on-device scanning of all your messages). Hungary took over and was pushing for the same. Poland took over and is proposing changes. Denmark has been in favor of the original proposal and is taking over in July 2025.
If you abhor surveillance, don't pick a Five-Eyes nation.
Don't forget the 14-Eyes, which includes most of Western Europe.
Wasn't this in line with JD Vance's European Eulogy last week, that we shouldn't be using 1984 as a playbook?
1984 could only ever have been written by an Englishman