><i>Orange has reiterated that the privacy of correspondence and negotiations can be broken only by special court order, and that the conditions and reasons for such action should be clearly defined in French law</i><p>So Orange is suing a U.S. government agency under French law? Unless the NSA or its EU affiliates beneficially own assets in the EU (that can be traced to it) this is a PR ploy.
also mentioned here
<a href="http://www.cbronline.com/news/tech/networks/telecoms/orange-to-charge-nsa-for-using-cable-in-surveillance-project-311213-4153796" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbronline.com/news/tech/networks/telecoms/orange-...</a><p>with all these "big brother" news, I almost forgot about the submarine cables - which is a simple way to get all the data.