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Comment by raxxorrax | Hacker News Reader

> Of all the governments to worry about, the ones in the EU (as well as US, CA, AU, NZ), are the ones I'd least be concerned with, relatively speaking.

Completely wrong threat assesment in my opinion. You should always be concerned about your own government. It isn't only the axis of evil that imprisons people with leaks about heavy privacy invasions.

Russia and China have anything about you and you are a citizen of a western nation? Great, because that doesn't matter at all.

You know who poses the greatest threat in motorsports? It is the other driver on your team.

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> ... * concerned about your own government.*

Who says I'm not? But I have recourse with government. What recourse do I have with a private corporation that's based in a country with such law privacy laws.

I know it was a rhetorical question but here it needs to be spelled out:

None.

Least concerned with? Have you already forgotten about Snowden? Do you know about Five Eyes (or even Fourteen Eyes)? In Canada they outsource surveillance of Canadians to overseas Five Eyes partner agencies so they evade their own privacy laws. It's reasonable to assume that other Five Eyes countries do the same.

I'm with an ISP that has a direct link to TorIX, which has a who's who of the major Internet properties and CDNs:

* https://www.torix.ca/peers/

My e-mail is hosted on Canadian soil with a direct-connect to TorIX (and I personally know the people who run the servers).

I know when I hit a foreign corporation (AMZN, GOOG, etc.) that my data is probably up for grabs, but I also know when when my traffic is not leaving Canadian (digital) soil.

So yes, I know all about ECHELON et al, but I know how the packets I send out are generally routed as well.

Alright, in case your government leverages allied ones to evade domestic legislation, foreign governments are a threat. But the initiative for surveillance still lies with your own government. That would only confirm the need to hold your own government accountable.

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