> American officials were quick to rebut the idea that foreign data would be more secure outside American borders. “There’s a big call for data localization,” said Richard A. Clarke, the former United States counterterrorism czar. He pointed to the announcement this week between the European Union and Brazil that they would run a new undersea fiber-optic cable between Brazil and Portugal to thwart American spying.

> “First of all, who doesn’t think the U.S. can’t listen in?” Mr. Clarke said. “Could it possibly be that these countries are trying to take business away from U.S. carriers?”

Anyone want to try and parse the double-negatives here? "who doesn’t think the U.S. can’t listen in?"

So he's saying, "It's not worth building your own networks, because we'll just tap those too?" Is that the official US government position now?