(By the way, EU != Europe. Iceland is not in the EU)

Oh sorry. I wasn't aware of that; I knew Norway and Switzerland were not members, but I didn't realize Iceland was also in that camp. A quick Google search shows that Iceland was in talks to join, but it appears they've backed out as of last year. My point with the example was however to pick a very small country with very low population, for the reasons you list: very few resources compared to a large country, very few people, thus poor economies of scale for implementing a spying apparatus like the NSA, and very low international power, but also a country with a good reputation in most ways (human rights, etc.). I think I was trying to pick an EU member, however, so that US bullying wouldn't be a factor; maybe Luxembourg or Andorra would have been a better example. They're tiny, but they're also EU members so they're not too likely to bow to US bullying the way a fully independent nation might.

That's simple: the US executives go to jail for obstruction of justice. It was their choice to set things up that way, and store their emails offshore with the intent of obstructing justice.

Well most of your liberal buddies voted for him. He certainly wasn't elected by conservatives. Not every single conservative voted for Bush either, but they still collectively bear the blame for his disastrous tenure.

Software? From China? You're kidding, right?

The engineering work (mainly software) is still all done in the US. For whatever reasons, other countries simply haven't developed so much expertise with software as Silicon Valley has.

Yes, I believe this is the exact point I'm trying to make. When the people in power have YOU, they don't need cooperation from foreign governments. You comply with their wishes, or else.

Yes, but the US does have the ability to make life miserable for YOU when you're on US soil. They don't need the Swiss government to help; they just have to "convince" you to give them the money voluntarily. Enter your PIN number here to transfer the money, or else.... Don't bother arguing legalities; the only thing that matters is power. Seizing cash because it's laced with cocaine isn't legal either (4th Amendment), but that doesn't stop them.

The DoI is not a legal document, and has zero legal weight. The Southern states tried something like what you suggest and it didn't turn out well for them. I do believe it's possible the US might break apart eventually, but due to the whole "united we stand, divided we fall" mentality plus the principles established by Lincoln concerning secession, the only way it'll happen is when things are SO bad the Federal government is simply powerless to prevent the states from leaving.

Then maybe you should do a better job voting. You liberals voted for Obama, and he's now your figurehead, and he flatly disagrees with you; he thinks the government IS entitled to all the irrelevant data it wants. Most other liberal politicians agree with Obama, and they make the laws. Good job.

There's a bit of a fallacy in that comment -- we have no proof that Iceland wouldn't be just as bad if they had the opportunity. If Iceland had the same vendor presence internationally that the US and China do, there's a fairly good chance that sooner or later someone would come into power who feels a need to abuse their position.

I'm pretty sure this is itself a fallacy. You can't just assume every country operates identically, given the same opportunity. That's just like saying every man would rape a woman given a good opportunity, just because one guy did so.

Iceland hasn't done anything to earn a bad reputation. The US government has.

What will (and in a lot of places has started to) happen is that all of the countries will just turn inwards and shut out everyone.

No, they'll erect better fences between themselves and stop sharing data they don't need to, which is a good thing. Data shouldn't be passed through untrustworthy countries. More backbones being built (as you cite with Canada) means more routes for data to move around in case some countries become bad actors. It's better that people/countries become more self-sufficient. This doesn't mean that all cross-border communications are going to cease. If I send an email from Canada to my friend in the US, that email needs to cross US backbones, and it's OK that US authorities can read it (if that's the law there, as the People there have voted for by electing pro-spying politicians). However, if I send an email from Canada to Iceland, it's not OK for US authorities to read that, so it's better if Canada has a link directly to Iceland (or at least the EU at large), without that traffic having to pass through the US first.

Exactly. You can't assume every government is going to behave justly at all times. Some governments are just plain bad. Do business with companies in those countries at your peril.

The problem with your assumption is that we're not talking about an overseas branch with some lackeys here. The upper management in this case is located in and resides in the country which is demanding the data.

If the upper management is found to have told the foreigners to obstruct justice, there's hefty penalties for that.

This is all very interesting, but it's completely tangential to the discussion at hand.

Swiss bank doesn't have to disclose ANYTHING to the USA regime about its account holders in Switzerland.

No, but when the US courts find that you, a US citizen living in the US, have monies in a foreign bank account (thanks to documents they seized by court order) which they've proven are stolen or need to be taxed or whatever, "it's not in the country" is not an excuse. You either come up with the money, or you sit in jail forever in contempt of court. You can't just hide property in a foreign country and avoid legal consequences.

And go where? Tech companies require highly-trained employees to operate. They could move to Mexico, for instance, but good luck getting any good employees there; there's not many locals with the requisite skills, and no one else wants to move there with all the cartel violence and kidnappings. They could move to Zimbabwe, but again there's zero locals there that can do the jobs, and who the hell wants to move to Zimbabwe? They could also move to some nice European country, but even here, assuming that government has a great reputation with these matters, there's a big logistical problem (not to mention a big cost) with trying to convince several thousand tech workers to pack up all at once and move to the other side of the planet, and also getting permission from the new host country for this. There's a good reason so many tech companies are located in Silicon Valley: lots of qualified workers are there (and they're there because lots of desirable jobs are there for them). It's not easy to move companies, because they can't afford to suddenly lose all their employees and try to hire new ones elsewhere. The best companies ever do is open up "satellite offices" in other tech hubs; maybe over time they could move themselves this way, but it's not a quick process by any means.