Realism vs Idealism
I think it is fair to say that most Europeans take a fairly dim view of many US policies. Gun control, waterboarding, the inability to get behind a good health care system and, yes, data protection laws. But EU and the US do share a belive in freedom. And the US should be free to make its own laws without coercion from the EU or anyone else. If they think guns are a good idea ( I think it's crazy ) then that is up to them. The EU has no right to tell the US what its laws should be, and even the most casual observer would see that even if they did have a right, they have no mechanism to enforce it.
In an ideal world, everyone would agree. In the real world, they don't. And above all things we should respect people's freedom to choose their own government and their own laws and then agree to disagree.
Given that the EU has no power (or right) to enforce EU law on the US, the EU are left with a choice. Do trade with the US or don't. Many have commented that EU companies should not use US providers. Easy to say, but harder to implement, because there are no good EU alternatives to Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon etc. In the real world, dropping Safe Harbor is the same as outlawing cloud computing. EU companies will suffer badly as key IT systems get switched off, with only less functional and hugely more expensive solutions to replace them. Many will not survive that and many jobs will be lost. The NSA however will not care at all.
Dropping Safe Harbor might seem like a good idealism. But the reality is that it will hurt EU business badly and it will achieve nothing. The US electorate do not care what the Eurocrats think and if the EU want to turn off business critical IT systems.... well I am sure they will think that is as dumb as we think US gun laws are.
The EU needs to adopt a more realistic and less idealistic position, enable Safe Harbor mk 2 and lets get on with business. People's jobs depend on it.
Perhaps Max could just 'unfriend' NSA :)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
