Mass surveillance is bad for business

The quote of the day comes from Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith at the Silicon Valley panel discussion on NSA surveillance, organized by Senator Ron Wyden (D – Oregon).

“If you’re a consumer or a company, you own your email, your text messages, your photos and all the content that you create. Even when you put your content in our data centers or on devices that we make, you still own it and you are entitled to the legal protection under our Constitution and our laws. We will not rebuild trust until our government recognizes that fundamental principle.”

Money talks. Mass surveillance erodes customers confidence in the tech industry. Business is lost when customers shy away from US Internet based services.

And it’s not just about business. Google’s Eric Schmidt warned about a fragmented, balkanized Internet. Wired sums it up…

“The cost will be huge in terms of shared knowledge, discoveries, and science. It will also be expensive, since the cost of running data centers in every country where they have customers may be too much for some firms to handle.”

The Civil Rights movement, Internet activists and the tech industry–now they all seems to stand together against US Government, its’ security bureaucracy and the security industry.

This might be the tipping point in our fight for a free and open Internet.

Some links: Wired » | CNet » | WP » | PC World » | The Register »

/ HAX