It is not that they didn't cooperate, but rather the police didn't think they where cooperating, at least not fully.
The problem the police has is that can't believe people when they say they don't have something. Imagine if someone killed somebody with a gun then gave the gun to some other-person, and when the police asked that other-person if they had the gun they said no. The police acting on a reasonable belief that they might have the gun, could get a warrant permitting a search for and the seizer of that gun, they wouldn't need to get a warrant if that other-person just gave them that gun. Of course there is still a problem that the other-person might never of had the gun but the police shouldn't just take them on their word.

They wouldn't of needed seize the servers in the case of Auntie. The BBC would cooperate with (and likely be the ones to report it to) the police and hand over logs, there would be no need to seize servers.

They might both have common law, but both France and the former USSR used civil law. Having the same general legal system doesn't mean that they have the same laws or same legal process for that matter.

In the UK they don't normally publish addresses, and they tend in the cases of Judges not to publish their first names even.
If an address was published it would generally be because a crime was committed there, or the police are having problems identifying somebody and are looking someone to come forward with information.

The data protection act comes to mind, they are only use the information for the propose it was obtained, if instance if you obtain someones address to send them personal correspondents, you can't then go around and sell it to junk mailer, or for that matter give it to a lynch mob.

Judges aren't elected in England, they are appointed. Also activist judges don't really exist in the UK, if a judge makes a ruling that is incompatible with law, and gets overturned on appeal then the judge could find their job on the cutting board, and if they had a conflict of interest that they didn't declare they could be tried.

I think we run the risk of exaggerating what the EU does, the EU does some trans-national transport funding, and more general funding of transport system extensions - particularly in the new eastern member states - but it doesn't run the railways.

The railways in Europe are generally owned by state-owned companies and tend to operate in opposite of the US model. The US has IIRC lots of privately owned companies that own and operate the tracks, stations, and freight; and with one state-owned (called am-track or something) that does passenger services. European countries tend to have one state own company that owns and operates the tracks and stations, and in cases like Germany also do passenger and limited freight services, but most rail services are provided by private companies that bid for franchise rights.

But, anyway this is going rather off-topic and dragging on quite a bit.

In short Americans tend to have a large empathise on the individual, whereas post-Enlightenment Europe tends to take the view that society is more important than the individual, and that a powerful state is necessary for a good society.

Well the EU likes competition, that is the very reason that the ECC (a precursor to the EU) was created, but only the right sort of competition.

In terms of tanks and bombs, those are mostly made through the same sort of military industrial complex that the US has. I was thinking more along the lines of railways and the likes of EDF.

It's not unreasonable because otherwise the single market wouldn't exist because member states wouldn't want to expose themselves to so much competition.

For Ireland having a low rate of tax is good because it it attracts multi-nationals looking for a tax heaven, and so still provides higher revenues than a higher rate would. But if everybody had the same low tax rates it wouldn't work because it wouldn't attract multi-nationals, it would just mean lower revenues for all member states concerned.

In Europe people might not like high taxes, but they do like high government revenue, and the public services, and national industry they provide.

His not, EU law state that member states must have a VAT (the EU's sales tax system) rate of at least 15%. It also has a minimum rate of corporation tax, which is what we are talking about in the context of Ireland.

In an economic union, like the European single market, it is not unreasonable to stop members from taking advantage and have overly-competitive tax rates.

Yes, but on Linux you have Konqueror using either KHTML or QTWebKit, you don't really need Safari on Linux.

The Commons can't use the Parliament Acts to force an extension of the term limit, but with the consent of the House of Lords they can, for instances of this look at the War Parliaments that existed for the First and Second World Wars.

Constitutional monarchy doesn't really mean that, Sweden and the Netherlands are constitutional monarchies, and they have a proper constitution.
The UK doesn't really have a constitution but a collection of old laws, statues and treaties, such as the English Bill Of Rights, the Magna Carta, and the Act of Settlement; and the concept of Parliamentary Supremacy.
Under Parliamentary Supremacy anything can be changed by a mere act of Parliament, it is only because of convention and tradition (and of course threat of electoral defeat) that stops Parliament from imposing things like the death penalty for speeding.