German Chancellor Proposes European Communications Network

An anonymous reader sends word that German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to build a European communication network to keep data transmission away from the United States. She plans to discuss the issue with French President Francois Hollande. "Merkel said in her weekly podcast that she disapproved of companies such as Google and Facebook basing their operations in countries with low levels of data protection while being active in countries such as Germany with high data protection. 'We'll talk with France about how we can maintain a high level of data protection,' Merkel said. 'Above all, we'll talk about European providers that offer security for our citizens, so that one shouldn't have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic. Rather, one could build up a communication network inside Europe.' Hollande's office confirmed that the governments had been discussing the matter and said Paris agreed with Berlin's proposals."

Merkel's virgin soil

[BitterKraut]

Remember, she's the one who called the Internet 'virgin soil' last year. But she's not the only one who has no clue. Every other week some European politician speaks up, demanding billions of tax payer's money to create an independent European IT industry. These noobs really seem to think there'll be a day when they can say, "Look, Obama, we've got our own Intel, we've got our own Microsoft, you can kiss our asses." At the same time, these guys complain that they can't run their offices with Linux: "It's too complicated for our staff. Give us back our Windows XP, our MS Office, our Internet Explorer."

Wrong Emphasis

[Dr_Barnowl]

The emphasis should be on encryption, not physical infrastructure. You can't audit, control and secure physical infrastructure for an internet, because it is by necessity, spread out across a large physical volume. You definitely can make it uneconomic to analyse the traffic.

Of course, this is probably an intentional oversight - all that infrastructure work is a great economic stimulus (or "pork barrel project" if you like). Why cloud the picture with reality when you can both spend billions of Euros on a jingoistic boondoggle AND still be able to collect SIGINT from your own people without difficulty?

Re:The actual quote

[jones_supa]

Well, she'd better keep it out of Sweden. Apart from the Swedish opinion on hookers and blackjack, the Swedish FRA loves giving all data passing through the country to the NSA.

That's also why Finland wants an alternative pipe [slashdot.org] to mid-Europe and not be routed through Sweden.