"Sorry, I'm totally against warrantless and mass collection of data, but if a court orders skype to hand over data for a criminal investigation and skype refuses, the next step will be that they will be summoned for obstructing investigation, not handing over evidence or even accomplice to criminal deeds."
Remind us all how much jurisdiction a Belgian court has in Luxembourg, or the USA for that matter?
You can't order a foreign company to do squat unless they have a branch registered in your country which you can serve a summons on. Sure, they can post a summons to their Luxembourg office, but they're under no compulsion to show up. What are they going to do - send Belgian Police across the border to arrest Skype execs in Luxembourg? That's rendition/kidnap, and wars have started over less provocative acts.
That's why we have European Arrest Warrants and cross-border cooperation, so the Belgians can make a request to the relevant authorities to help them in securing evidence. It is entirely right and proper that the Belgian Police go through the proper process to secure evidence held in another country.
I have friends in the Channel Islands who service various clients where the law requires customer data to be stored locally, in-country. Are you suggesting that the FBI should simply be able to say "oi, send us a clone of that disk" and they should just wing it over with narry a thought?
Not a flocking chance. If anyone wants that data, they go to the Jersey/Guernsey authorities and ask for their co-operation in acquiring the data they require. If the request isn't coming from local authorities, it has no power whatsoever, because Jersey companies are not subject to US law. They're subject to Jersey law, just as Luxembourg companies are not subject to Belgian law (or Belgian law enforcement). Funny that.