Swiss here. It's not really any better here. Right now they're trying to push a law that would legalize it for them to save metadata for all connections up to 12 months. And they could legaly install RAT's on phones and PC's.
It's called "BÜPF" but i can't find an english page right now.
You might want to use google translate on the petition site (by the local pirate party, CCC switzerland etc.): <a href="http://buepf.ch" rel="nofollow">http://buepf.ch</a> (and sign it if you can be bothered)<p>//edit: direct gtranslate link: <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=buepf.ch&act=url" rel="nofollow">http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...</a>
Those poor souls must not have heard of this news:<p>"U.S. and Switzerland Reach Deal on Sharing of Financial Account Data"<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/business/global/22iht-tax22.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/business/global/22iht-tax2...</a><p>This is also interesting:<p>> "Switzerland’s cooperation comes after the Justice Department prosecuted 11 Swiss banks on suspicion of aiding Americans in evading taxes, creating deep uncertainty for the country’s financial sector."<p>How many US banks has the Justice Department prosecuted yet?
"You’ve probably heard of the unique benefits of Swiss banks"<p>Yeah, I heard that's no longer true. There's few countries that have proper banking secrecy anymore. Panama gave up their last bit of secrecy after the US helped the last president get elected by spying on his competitors.<p>Guatemala does have secrecy. It's built into the last constitution of the country (in the 80s). Not even the Guatemalan revenue service is allowed to review bank accounts. OTOH, it's probably not the most stable country to want to park your money in.
The saddest part about this whole PRISM scandal to me is that the tech companies involved did not seem at all opposed to the idea - and even if they were, why not give your customers a heads up? It's so sad. Nerds need to get on the moral high ground pronto. Your technology is making the world so much better so don't ruin it. Don't be evil and don't be a dick.
Isn't this equivalent to Edward Snowden's asylum dilemma? The offer of asylum is pretty worthless if he can't get to that country. Heck, last week it was proven that he would need favorable countries to form solid continuous path of sovereign land between Moscow and the asylum granting country.<p>The offer of a secure location to store data in Switzerland is pretty worthless if the data has to be transferred over compromised data lines that have to run through at least one of the three surrounding countries, all complicit in tapping the lines.
This article reminds me of <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html</a> - no concrete numbers are mentioned of the company's increased usage/customers, and the only quotes presented are from this company's CEO, who obviously have a lot to benefit from an article touting the benefits of a Swiss data center.
Off topic, but what is the name for the grammatical concept of the difference between NY Times/Washington Post-style headlines like this one ("After PRISM reports, Swiss data bank sees boost") and British-style newspaper headlines which use a more active* voice, e.g. "Swiss data bank sees boost after PRISM reports."<p>*I've probably got that term wrong.
It would be interesting to compare the self reported boost in business after PRISM revelations to the boost in business after being mentioned in a WaPo article.