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.

I don't see how this is different for any country. If China's government wants something that your company has, and issues a subpoena or court order for it, and your company has a physical presence in China, they can hold those company officers in jail until you produce the information/item. Same goes for any country.

What you need to look at is the track record of the government(s) which your vendor operates under. I never hear about the government of Iceland causing problems with companies and their customers, yet I do hear about the US legal system causing a lot of problems. So if you have a choice between an Iceland-based vendor and a US-based one, maybe you should select the former.

If you don't like the law, you're free to go to another country. Isn't that the way you nutball Randians think?

This is the case for any normal country, as well it should be. I can't believe I'm defending Obama on something, but they're right on this one: if a country's legal system has a valid case for something, and issues a court order ordering you to turn something over, you can't just avoid a court order by saying "it's in my summer home in another country!". If you refuse, they can hold you in contempt of court until you decide to produce it. Maybe the other country can't be compelled to give it up, but you're in this country, and they can keep you in jail as long as they want.

More of that high-quality Slashdot/Dice.com editing.

They don't need to be high voltage or high current, they just need to have electrolytic caps, like most analog circuitry does. Electrolytic caps don't need to run hot, they just need to be electrolytic and made in China, and they're virtually guaranteed to fail early. Go read about the Capacitor Plague.

You sound like a typical Democrat voter: anyone who disagrees with the Democrat party line is automatically a "nutcake gun-owning, violent conservative", Obama somehow isn't at fault for anything his administration does but Bush can be blamed for all current Democrat policies, and calling Obama on his pro-Bush policies is somehow "hatred of technology and science" and makes one a Holocaust denier.

Honestly, I used to think the Republicans were the nutty ones, but these days I'm starting to believe it's really the Democrats who are insane.

You are misinformed and ignorant.

Sounds like a typical American.

I wonder if it fell victim to the Capacitor Plague. It might have just needed some new electrolytic caps.

We already have what you're asking for: it's called "QML", which is part of the Qt toolkit.