The European regulatory response to NSA-gate is gathering momentum.  The focus du jour is the cloud.  This New York Times article is a nice summary of the nonsensical thinking of some Europeans.  For example, provided in the article:

Viviane Reding, the European Commission’s justice minister, said in her own statement that she wanted to see “the development of European clouds” certified to strict new European standards.

She said that European governments could promote such a move “by making sure that data processed by them are only stored in clouds to which E.U. data protection laws and European jurisdiction applies.”

“For the private sector, such European clouds could become also attractive as they could advertise, ‘These are European clouds, so your personal data is safe,’ ” she said.

That’s great.  I didn’t know that just being in Europe guarantees that your data is safe.  None of those nasty hackers from outside the EU can break through the magical EU firewall, and of course the NSA will be repelled as well.

I wonder if there will be a new EU regulation that also protects data in Europe from Europeans, like the UK, or Germany, or France and those people. 

Read a little further into the article and you’ll find some more rational thinking.  I hope the rational actors in the EU have more control over policy there than the rational actors do here.