'Which comes back to the point I've been trying to make all along here. In the most serious extreme, nowhere in the world is "safe"'
Do you have any suggestions for countries that have excellent data connectivity, would successfully resist pressure from US/UK/X authorities to hand over our servers, and at the same time would not themselves want access to?
As for whether or not they want access to data: There's nothing wrong with governments accessing data if there's a court order in place and their request is part of an investigation. It's the automatic surveillance of everyone that NSA does that's a problem, and it's certainly not all countries that do that.
In the most serious extreme, nowhere in the world is "safe"
Sure, but there are levels of safety, and the US has turned out to have a low degree of safety for a Western country. The fact that you probably can't find a perfect country shouldn't be an excuse to pick a notoriously unsafe one.
"We have a complete live-spare datacentre in Iceland. Eventually it will be a fully operational centre in its own right, but for now it’s running almost 100% in replica mode."
I'm not so sure about the safe-haveness of Switzerland these days. They already caved to the US, giving them access to banking info (what they're famous for... which leaves me wondering what Switzerland got in return):
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/28/uk-switzerland-usa-tax-idUKBRE97R0CY20130828Let me know when that happens and I'll gladly sign up for your service :)
I'm not so sure about the safe-haveness of Switzerland these days. They already caved to the US, giving them access to banking info (what they're famous for... which leaves me wondering what Switzerland got in return):
I don't see how bank secrets have anything to do with Internet surveillance. There's a general tendency now both in the US and the EU to pressure tax havens such as Switzerland, Andorra, the Bahamas, etc. to give up their bank secrets so that corporations and rich individuals can't hide their income and avoid paying taxes. That seems fair enough, and I don't see a direct link between that and Internet surveillance.