I suspect that EU and NATO membership carries with it certain disclosure
obligations. Merkel has defended the NSA, and Snowden had revealed extensive
German cooperation. It subsequently came to light that Germany had also been
monitoring its allies too.
Although I'm very pro-NATO, I'm probably hypocritical in preferring my own
email hosting to be in a neutral country, but there it is.
However, I'm also aware that Germany has strict privacy laws in part because
of the two totalitarian, mass-surveillance regimes it or part of it had to
endure. And that leaked disclosures of US monitoring of the Chancellor's
mobile phone created a furor in Germany, reinforcing its privacy culture and
perhaps undermining its cooperation on surveillance.
Finally, you made some factual points I was unaware of; namely that the Swiss
keep 6 months of data while Germans don't. Since I know only Switzerland has
referenda and Germany does not, can you let me know which referendum /
plebiscite it was, held in what year, that requires Switzerland keep data for
6 months?
