Comment Re:I can see why they didn't investigate (Score 1) 60
Nope, fascinatingly, this is not about the NSA as such.
The issue is that for many reasons, US companies cannot implement European standards in data privacy laws. That starts from some lowly county judge issuing subpoenas and at the other end you've got the "America uber alles" chanting federal intelligence apparatus, e.g. NSLs, all kind of regulations in the Patriot Act, giving Teleco providers retroactively immunity for cooperating with the government, and so on.
So now we've got the situation where there is a law that all cars sold need to have seat belts. (privacy) But US companies are allowed to sell cars without seat belts, because they claim that they equivalent protection, because their local guru has prayed for the safety of their customers. (Safe Harbor Agreement). Now somebody has decided to call a spade a spade, and mentioned in the correct forum, that a prayer by whatever guru cannot fulfil the safety regulation in any possible way. (That's the kid that cried that the Emperor is naked.)
Worst from the "Postprivacy" faction is that EU Court has been known to issue rulings in the past that pissed of politicians, just because it's the law. And privacy is a basic human right in the EU treaties. The fact that it's inconvenient for the US companies or many Politicians (whose are seldom champions of privacy, well they only become privacy advocates when it comes to their own privacy) is not really very relevant in the context of a basic right.