Comment by Quothling
12 days ago
> The idea that EU surveillance is greater than US surveillance is almost certainly mistaken.
Well yes, but that doesn't mean we want EU surveillance to replace it.
12 days ago
> The idea that EU surveillance is greater than US surveillance is almost certainly mistaken.
Well yes, but that doesn't mean we want EU surveillance to replace it.
If my choice is an American company which does tracking, and a European company which does tracking, then I as European prefer the European one. Because they can be held accountable in a court of law. In Russia or China, that isn't the case. And it doesn't seem like it remains the case in USA. SCOTUS, for example, has been a political instrument for a long, long time.
As an European I'd be rather tracked by an American (out Chinese, Russian, ...) company than by an EU or European regimes.
Those companies are less likely to imprison or censor me than the regime who rules over Europe.
European citizens under US sanctions are being erased economically and socially within the EU. This is not to mention the systemic dismantling of the ICC at an individual level. The US has sanctioned six ICC judges this year, along with the court’s chief prosecutor and two deputy prosecutors.
Prior to Trump, most of the ~15,000 individuals on the US sanctions list were members of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Mafia, or warlords and despot leaders of authoritarian regimes.
The state department justification relates either to their roles in the Afghanistan investigation or them facilitating the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity. As a result they now can't book a hotel, use credit cards or access everyday services. As Nicolas Guillou says 'You are effectively blacklisted by much of the world's banking system'
As the Le Monde article concludes, while it is the prerogative of the US government to exercise sovereignty on its own territory, it is unacceptable, however, that European citizens – some of them above any suspicion in the eyes of their own authorities – lose everything at home due to excessive caution on the part of European companies in relation to spiteful US foreign policy.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2025/07/26/europea...
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2025/12/12/its-surreal-u...
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n...
5 replies →
Yes, no imprisonment or censorship happening in the us.
2 replies →
They need to follow the law such as GDPR. American companies have to as well, but if they won't, will they be held accountable? Or will there be even more sanctions?
[dead]
> Well yes, but that doesn't mean we want EU surveillance to replace it.
I agree, but what choice do we have? If we look at the way things are going, we see that the US is expanding its surveillance apparatus, China is expanding its surveillance apparatus, Russia is expanding its surveillance apparatus and the EU is following suit. Or at least is trying to, because previous attempts to implement surveillance policies have tended to reveal the incompetence of our representatives. Even leaving the EU is no guarantee that we will not become a surveillance state, as seen in the UK.
The only way to circumvent surveillance is to create and use communication channels where the government nor companies have any influence.