
Why I'm boycotting US cloud tech - cdvonstinkpot
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/08/what_about_a_us_tech_boycott/
======
nraynaud
I have always ridiculed those big European programs aimed at removing or limit
the presence of google from Europeans citizens everyday life, but somehow,
even if the European administrations can't manage software programs, their
premises were right all along. Some friends were looking for providers outside
of the Patriot Act because their customers would not accept US spying on their
data, I was telling them I didn't really care, I was wrong. We might have to
cut some links across the pound because our "ally" is turning less and less
rational and he's massively weaponized, and take a sane route for ourselves
(which is a big fight on its own).

~~~
cdvonstinkpot
So if the theory holds true that things need to get worse before they get
better, this could be good news in that it could be the motivating event in
the global market for truly private cloud services.

Perhaps some European startup has a solution to our US based privacy problem
that we could all migrate to for our cloud services.

~~~
chmars
As much as the US should be blamed for Prism etc., it should not be ignored
that very similar programs exist in Europa as well – often in direct
cooperation with the US. There might be a privacy advantage in Europe on paper
but not much of that remains in daily life and business reality, it is mostly
'cover your ass' in the end.

~~~
nraynaud
They don't share everything, for example when they spy on a foreign company in
advance for a big RFE, they won't share. But they are most likely to share
real threats, because they are being judged on what they share. Then you have
the game of powers, like when Europe had to surrender plane passengers
personal data. Being foreigner's data, they are perfectly game for every
spilling or abuse since only US citizens are a political issue, and there is
mostly no way to get the US Government accountable for any international
treaty.

~~~
waps
Exactly which government can you hold to international treaties ?

Let's take a very obvious and blatant example. The government of Saudi Arabia
signed the declaration of human rights, the FIRST article of which guarantees
individual freedom of religion. Yet we all know they don't allow that, and
they regularly execute ex-muslims for converting to Christianity, for being
gay, and for a dozen other things. There's thousands of documented cases.

As if this is not bad enough, the government officials of Saudi Arabia
regularly get caught torturing people they plucked off the street, apparently
for fun. One of their allies, a UAE official, got caught on tape (or should we
say, made a tape of him having his fun, then someone "leaked" it) [1]. This is
legal (in sharia the government has the right to kill, torture and ... anyone
they want).

I would say this is a far more blatant and dishonest practice than the ones
you're alleging to. Yes the US spies, big whoop. They don't publicly behead
people for things they signed a treaty they would not consider a crime ... And
yet nobody seems to care. Yet one thing seems blatantly obvious : when it
comes to human rights, the US ... is not the problem.

The truth is that outside of some of Western Europe and the US, most
governments consider international treaties little more than a weapon to be
used against their enemies because of the public attention they can garner
using them. The most blatant violators, from Saudi Arabia to China, accuse
everyone, from the US to Luxembourg, of violating international agreements of
torture. Nobody should take this serious, but of course a lot of people do.

So let me know how these international treaties are supposed to work. I would
love to hear how you'll get freedom of conviction, religion, politics and
sexual orientation respected in the ~2/3rds of our planet that has signed an
international treaty not to consider it a crime, yet kill people for it.
China, just about every muslim country, Russia, ... (2/3rds, because China,
India and Indonesia together form a comfortable 60% of the world, and none of
them respects even basic freedom of religion. Only India can be said to give
it a half-hearted attempt)

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHgaMqTzWaE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHgaMqTzWaE)

------
mtgx
Maybe it will force Google (and others) to at least add OTR and ZRTP to
Hangouts (enabled by default), for chats and video, and "one-click" _local_
encryption for Google drive, to make it easy for everyone to use storage
encryption (it will probably need to use a plugin).

But even then this will only solve the chatting and storage problem
(somewhat), but not the Gmail problem. Even with local encryption available as
one-click, it seems very unlikely more than 1% of the users would use it,
because they'd need to send the key to their friends, and that's just too
cumbersome. And if only so few use it, then it's as good as useless, and
Google still can't be fully trusted for e-mails (thanks to the US government).

What I'd like to see Google do now, is become very pro-active about this, and
to implement measures like this to "give the privacy _control_ back to the
people". Then maybe, just maybe, I'll _begin_ to trust Google again.

But I'm not holding my breath. I doubt it's illegal for them to do all of
this, but especially if there's a legal grey area here to make it easy for
their customers to encrypt stuff locally, I don't see them bothering to fight
for this. The only way they might do it if there's a significant threat to
their business, much like SOPA was.

That's why I'm hoping the theory put forward by the author will become
reality, and this NSA story will hurt US companies' bottomlines badly, and
their international relationships, because only then we'll have true
competition in privacy.

It's also probably the only way to convince the government to stop doing it to
this extent, because from what I've noticed they listen a lot more to money
and lobbying than to citizen outrage.

~~~
stefanix
Google can't offer proper encryption because most of their business model is
based on analyzing all the personal data they store. At least it's very
unlikely and I wouldn't hold my breath.

------
rdl
Code, not laws.

Most foreign governments are just as bad, just with fewer resources and often
with less explicit protections for privacy.

The ultimate solution would be to only use cloud servers which make verifiable
technical claims about security and privacy to the level you require;
otherwise, boycott the cloud.

I'm personally fine with Twitter as a publishing platform (and essentially
treat my dm as "stuff which is too spammy for even an at reply".)

Facebook kind of skirts the line. It is really useful as both a way to get
newsfeed updates and a messaging system. In the long run, I'd really need
something like OTR to continue using messages.

My email is too private for me to want it on a cloud service without serious
technical controls. No one offers this yet, so I self-host.

IM with OTR is ok for privacy, but sucks for traffic analysis still, and there
are serious problems with OTR and mobile/multi client, still.

My password manager is too sensitive to live on public servers even with
crypto, since I can't audit every single update to the package thoroughly
enough. Same goes with "secure notes" (safe combos, etc). A belt and
suspenders approach of both using crypto and maintaining access control on the
file is about the best I can do so far; something like an HSM in the future.

Cellphones and voice (and presence/location) are the sacrifice I hate the most
(along with finance, I guess). If I had a way to get analog one-way pager
notifications of incoming messages and a wifi-tunneling tablet, I'd consider
ditching cellphone entirely. This would be a moderately big deal to develop,
though.

Ultimately anonymous ecash (chaumian blinded tokens or Zerocoin or something
else) is the solution to financial privacy (probably not straight Bitcoin,
since there will be a jihad against mixes, and without mixes, Bitcoin privacy
is horrible.)

~~~
polemic
No no no. Firstly this is just an arms race between you and the most
sophisticated, well resourced and technically savvy surveillance organisation
that has ever existed. Secondly, this strategy might temporarily protect a
tiny knowledgable fraction of the population, which is of no real consequence
to society in general.

~~~
rdl
Fortunately the same principles of physics and mathematics apply to both me
and Google (and the #3 or #4 most powerful/smart organization, NSA). I trust
science a lot more than I trust either every member of every organization to
obey the law, or the law to remain both public and supportive of my interests.

~~~
dnautics
don't be so sure. The NSA is probably far, far ahead in mathematics.

~~~
rdl
Absolutely true in 1970, but probably much less true now (they probably ARE
experts in traffic analysis, though, since ~no one but intel agencies cares
about that yet). Academia and commerce tend to surpass the government in every
OTHER area where they participate, it's just that no one cared pre-70s. I
don't think they're using their huge budget efficiently, just like every other
government/military program. The bulk of their budget and effort is going to
collection, mainly satellites, physical installations, staffing for those,
etc.

Judging by what I've seen of USG security, their COMSEC side (defense) is
actually comparatively weaker than best practices in most of the high-end
civilian world. Their only saving grace is a focus on physical separation and
hardware implementations; otherwise they'd be totally pwned, and they seem to
be moving "into the cloud" which will lose their their existing advantages.

And, if they had a magic way to factor or whatever, it would be _so_ highly
classified (like Enigma break in WW2)that they could never use it on anything
which wasn't totally justifiable through other plausible means, and of such
incredible value (like "killing OBL" or higher), that I can act as if they
can't factor.

~~~
dnautics
I'm pretty sure the NSA has an active program to recruit high-level strictly
theoretical mathematicians specializing in algebra and algebraic analysis
(typically at the undergrad level).

Agree that the US's COMSEC is degrading, rapidly. As is the USN's nuke reactor
program. Sigh.

~~~
rdl
They do, although the _vast_ majority of NSA staff are more like computer
techs/middle managers/etc. Sadly.

It's also a lot harder, IMO, to convince a top theoretical mathematician to go
to NSA vs. remain in public, since there aren't exactly amazing resources NSA
can offer (better chalk?), compared to someone who needs access to multi-
million or billion dollar resources. In exchange for better chalk (and access
to other classified work, sure), you can't publish, so you'll never win a
Fields, be respected by your mom, etc. (A guy who really is into nuclear
physics _could_ be tempted by DOE, by comparison.)

I think NSA would have a much easier time recruiting "true believers" in US
national defense than anything else. i.e. "yes, you're an expert in
theoretical math, but rather than doing purely abstract stuff, you can help
protect your country from the evil terrorists!". An easier case when the
threat was existential nuclear annihilation from a USSR your relatives may
have fled in the past, than now where we're going up against mud hut dwellers
who can't afford shoes and take over planes with boxcutters.

NSA also does the bullshit "EOE" recruiting, particularly in the high school
and undergrad level. Sorry, but most high level math people are not
particularly "diverse".

Plus, go to the math department at top universities. Find the US citizen. Find
the US citizen who isn't particularly counterculture or does recreational
drugs or whatever. Convince him to work for GS/GG wages (maybe $100k, tops?)
vs. a tech startup or a hedge fund. With paralyzing bureaucracy, uncertain
funding in the next 10-20 years, and stifling work rules.

I would not want to be the NSA's recruiting department.

~~~
dnautics
good points.

------
mosselman
"but the truth of the matter is that the entire Western world owes the very
foundation of its modern beliefs to the US Constitution, in my opinion."

What are those 'modern beliefs' then? Modern democracy, philosophy and human
rights are not American products, but European, starting with ancient Greece,
further expanded during the Renaissance and the reformations after the 2 world
wars.

The fact that America is so young allowed them to choose from many of the
time's political ideas. Saying what you said is like saying 'all smartphone
users owe Samsung for the user experience, because they created the Galaxy
S4'.

~~~
btilly
_What are those 'modern beliefs' then? Modern democracy, philosophy and human
rights are not American products, but European, starting with ancient Greece,
further expanded during the Renaissance and the reformations after the 2 world
wars._

How Eurocentric of you.

As [http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-
english/2004/September/20...](http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-
english/2004/September/20040924120101AKllennoCcM9.930056e-02.html) points out,
the US Constitution took some of its inspiration from the Iroquois. They
provided inspiration for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a 2 state
legislature, a federal system, the requirement for an annual state of the
union address, and so on.

Of course the influences you cite were also hugely important. However the USA
introduced important ideas from the native Americans that had not previously
been part of the European tradition.

~~~
jongraehl
I was curious about this Iroquois influence on the form of U.S. government, so
I read Wikipedia. It turns out to be a pleasing story of recent invention.[1]

Perhaps we can say that the prominence of the Iroquois confederacy (where,
although the tribes themselves had hereditary leadership, the way the tribes
were confederated was vaguely democratic[2]), was used as a persuasive anchor
in favor of the colonists' confederation - Ben Franklin urging: "It would be a
very strange thing, if six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of
forming a Scheme for such a Union … and yet that a like union should be
impracticable for ten or a Dozen English Colonies."

Some excerpts:

    
    
      Rakove writes, "The voluminous records we have for the constitutional debates of the late 1780s contain no significant references to the Iroquois" and notes that there are ample European precedents to the democratic institutions of the United States.[57]
    
      Tooker concluded that the documents cited indicate that groups of Iroquois and white settlers realized the advantages of a confederation, but she thinks there is little evidence to support the idea that 18th century colonists were knowledgeable regarding the Iroquois system of governance.
    
      Tooker concludes, "...there is virtually no evidence that the framers borrowed from the Iroquois." She thinks the myth resulted from exaggerations and misunderstandings of a claim made by the Iroquois linguist and ethnographer J.N.B. Hewitt after his death in 1937.[60]
    

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_Confederacy#Influence_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_Confederacy#Influence_on_the_United_States)

[2] (from wikipedia) No Iroquois treaty was binding unless it was ratified by
75% of the male voters and 75% of the mothers of the nation.[46] In revising
Council laws and customs, a consent of two-thirds of the mothers was
required.[46] The need for a double supermajority to make major changes made
the Confederacy a de facto consensus government.[47]

[57] [http://hnn.us/articles/12974.html](http://hnn.us/articles/12974.html)

[60] Tooker E (1990). "The United States Constitution and the Iroquois League"

~~~
btilly
Sadly as I've gone back through sources that I learned this from, the case for
it is not nearly as strong as I had believed. :-(

Doubly so given that the Corsican constitution predates the US and has many of
the same ideas, but clearly with no native influence.

Still, there are parallels, and the case is strong that Benjamin Franklin was
personally moved by the Iroquois example.

------
decasteve
I want my private files and private communications to be private.

We should all be boycotting centralization of private communications and
unencrypted file storage in the cloud as a precautionary measure. In light of
NSA/Prism, especially when communicated across national borders, we should
insist on end-to-end encryption: GPG/PGP, S/MIME, HTTPS, RSA/DES/etc, i.e.
nothing sent in the clear.

For public services like Google+ or Twitter, the information is public anyway.
Unless Google, Apple, Microsoft, et al, start implementing back doors on my
devices for the NSA I don't think boycotting is the answer. The pressure has
to be primarily on the politicians, hold their feet to the fire until
FISA/PATRIOT acts are repealed.

------
chmars
'Not subject to American law' might not be possible if you want to use today's
Internet in a global manner.

US citizens for example get taxed worldwide and banks worldwide have to comply
with American law if they want to remain part of the global banking system
(and don't want to go out of business). That's possible because the heart of
the global banking system is located in the US or at least under American
control.

Today's Internet is very similar and American companies are the dominating
forces on the Internet anyway. And with regard to surveillance and
interception, the US even has many supporting allies worldwide, just think of
Echolon …

~~~
brudgers
I am an American. But I don't think that the world of business will always
revolve around that fact. US domination of the internet is subject to
disruption, and laws which require the implementation of state sponsored
spyware may place US based companies at a disadvantage in the global
marketplace.

To put it another way, given a choice Gmail-private will come to be preferred
to Gmail-PRISM should the user facing feature sets be comparable. And it is
likely to be easier to implement Gmail-private if the company providing it is
located outside the US - i.e. is not Google. The same applies to search, maps,
and eventually mobile communication.

~~~
chmars
I like your – very American! – optimism.

An unpleasant fact is that the Internet outside the US is under heavy
surveillance too, think of China and the Arabic world but also Europe. From a
user perspective, you cannot opt against surveillance, you can mainly choose
who can directly intercept your communications. And in this regard and
although I don't like to be under any surveillance, the US is usually the
lesser evil.

~~~
Zigurd
_" the Internet outside the US is under heavy surveillance too, think of China
and the Arabic world"_

This is where a tragic lack of foresight comes in. In 40 years China will be
the world's dominant nation. Do we want to be in that transition setting a
good example or a bad example? Do we want to be setting high standards for
restraint, privacy, and individual freedom, or do we want to be seen grabbing
every privilege and advantage right to the bitter end?

~~~
cema
<q>Do we want to be in that transition setting a good example or a bad
example?</q>

The way you posit the question... Are you sure they care about any such
example?

------
guelo
What's funny is only China was smart enough to keep Sillicon Valley
surveillance out of their country. Though it was only because they wanted to
control the surveilance themselves.

~~~
coldtea
> _What 's funny is only China was smart enough to keep Sillicon Valley
> surveillance out of their country. Though it was only because they wanted to
> control the surveilance themselves._

I wouldn't call it "only".

That's a very important distinction.

It means that on the internet, they can be a (more) sovereign state -- not
depended on third countries for their internet services and life.

------
graycat
Long ago I concluded that any of my personal data or business data outside the
locked doors of my own facilities would be an open, engraved invitation for
lawyers and big government to get between me and my data and cause me no end
of time, effort, and money wasted, so much waste that the lawyers and big
government could easily ruin both my business and my life, even if there is
absolutely nothing at all wrong.

Here's the real situation: Lawyers and big government, especially the second,
have unlimited time, money, effort, and powers and nothing much else to do but
cause trouble, and I just do not have the resources to defend myself against
them. To them a false alarm is just another project at the office; to me their
false alarm is likely the death of my business and a big torpedo below the
water line of my little boat in life.

So, my 'tactic' is just to do nothing wrong, certainly have nothing wrong in
my data, try to remain mostly anonymous, stay the heck below their radar, and
keep my data inside my own four walls.

I can still be vulnerable to various false alarms. And if my business is at
all successful, I may have to become something of a 'public person', that is,
not so anonymous, and, then, be on the radar of various people who would like
to cause me trouble. There could be news reporters looking to 'manufacture' a
scandal for a 'scoop'. There could be politically motivated attackers. And
there could be just common shakedown artists who want me to give them
something and else trigger some false alarm to have big government cause me
trouble. One false alarm could cost me my business, years of time, millions of
dollars in legal fees, all for nothing substantive at all.

Just as for anyone, any of my data outside my four walls is just raw meat for
lots of people who could do me harm. So, no 'cloud' servers; no 'cloud' file
backup; little or nothing on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+; all blog
posts anonymous; mostly don't let browsers accept cookies,; etc.

Let lawyers and big government go after easier targets. I remember the old
joke that don't have to outrun the angry bear; instead, just have to outrun
the poor other guy trying to outrun the angry bear.

~~~
turbojerry
This is what I term "Professional Paranoia" and as long as you can be
unemotional about it, it can be an exceptionally useful mindset. I have
internalized the Moscow Rules[1] and I constantly remind myself of what Bruce
Lee said, "Be like water".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_rules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_rules)

~~~
graycat
I'm not at much risk (except for maybe some of my HN posts!) and am not very
safe, but I'm safer than I would be trying to be a public figure speaking out.

At times I have heard suggestions that I should start a blog, but then I'd be
closer to being a public figure and more at risk.

Again, if my business is successful, then I will be less anonymous and
sometimes have to hold my tongue!

------
cseelus
Any email provider out there in a 'safe location' that can compete with GMail?
I'd really like to move the GMail Acc. I use for some of my mail, but every
option kinda feels like moving from smoke to smother.

~~~
cdvonstinkpot
I use Fastmail, owned by Opera Software- out of Australia.

Been with them for a decade, always been extra happy with it.

~~~
chmars
Australia should not be considered a 'safe location'. Australia closely
cooperates with the US and is even one of the core members of Echolon. And the
FastMail server are located in the US anyway …

~~~
cdvonstinkpot
Good to know- I didn't know. Thanks.

~~~
personlurking
Good to know Fastmail location for me, too. In recent weeks, I was considering
Fastmail over Gmail and upon receiving the NSA news, I was more inclined to
make the switch.

------
personlurking
If you boycot US cloud, you surely will come into contact with it and
therefore have your info stored by US tech companies. Ex. I live in Slovakia
and I send an email from XYZ email service to someone who uses Gmail, does
that not fall into the US cloud spider web?

~~~
gwright
You've touched the web long before getting to a Google server.

National borders have always been special demarcations and so any crossing,
physical or digital, is subject to special examination.

The nature of modern digital communication has blurred the borders somewhat
and perhaps more significantly has made it easy to forget when your digital
actions are transgressing those borders.

In the physical world we've accepted that there are border control stations on
roads, at airports, and ports. Some of the surveillance mechanisms that have
been in the press lately are the digital equivalent. Some seem to be much more
than that.

It is going to take some serious public debate and some enlightened leadership
to reign in our surveillance state and to come to a better public consensus
regarding what privacy standards we want to embed in domestic and
international law.

------
spindritf
If you live outside of the States, aren't you already boycotting US clouds
because of the latency? I think I only use Tarsnap for any remotely sensitive
data.

Otherwise, I keep it as close to home as possible. It's a pain to use a VPS in
America for example. Even with Mosh.

~~~
_delirium
Here in Denmark, use of Google services is extremely common, even in companies
and universities. Lots of people are slowly migrating everything to Google
Docs and Gmail, latency notwithstanding. There is some worry that this is de-
facto watering down rules around things like privacy of student data, since
that data is now ending up on services that don't implement European data-
protection rules.

Gmail was disqualified from the bidding to provide a hosted email solution for
the university I work at, for that reason, but Google services are nonetheless
pretty widely used by individuals, even for official purposes. The contract
eventually went to Microsoft's Office 365, which claims to comply with EU
data-protection best practices (I believe the servers are also physically
hosted in Europe): [http://office.microsoft.com/en-
us/business/office-365-trust-...](http://office.microsoft.com/en-
us/business/office-365-trust-center-eu-model-clauses-faq-cloud-privacy-
FX104033856.aspx)

I would guess that the promise is not particularly solid if the U.S.
government wants to siphon off data from Microsoft, though. In practice I
think it does provide some protection, but mostly against commercial use of
the data: Microsoft has contractually agreed to certain rules about data-
mining and data-sharing that Google hasn't.

------
eksith
Suddenly, the rush to abandon private forums for "social media" seems,
foolhardy doesn't it?

Of course discussion of specialized topics were spread out over a million
places, but that was a million places - many of which were spread over
different countries - someone would need to look (and get a warrant) to access
data.

The down side to homogeneity is that it takes just one infection to bring down
the lot.

------
ihsw
You might as well try boycotting US customers as well -- both are phenomenally
impossible to accomplish but the end-goal is still the same.

~~~
1morepassword
Boycotting US customers should be easy. After all, US companies have perfected
the art of boycotting non-US customers...

Anyway, boycotting US cloud tech is not that hard, albeit a bit inconvenient
in some cases. In many cases putting data within legal reach of the US
government is simply illegal, so an entire market has sprung up to offer
services that guarantee non US ownership and no data and services within US
jurisdiction.

And this is just for the sake of regulatory compliance. In fact, it's probably
the #1 selling point for non-US cloud services already. The NSA shitstorm is
not exactly going to have a negative impact on that market...

~~~
alan_cx
Isn't it already being done? Don't gambling sites have to block US users?

------
gasull
> _' Not subject to American law' \- the next desirable IT feature_

We have seen in the past how the US Government overreaches to take down any
website no matter where it's hosted. If you want to be "not subject to
American law" you need to build an .onion torsite.

------
runjake
You can be assured that the partner nations of the UKUSA not only have access
to these NSA programs, but probably also participate. And then what non-shady
nations are you left with? Israel? Please.

This isn't just the US folks.

------
AlexeiSadeski
And how will the author boycott the NSA's cloud tech?

------
waps
Since this is probably the 20th PRISM story today, here's a pitch for a new
startup:

darkness.io is a incredible startup that is a complete game changer. I founded
darkness.io after realizing that there is an untapped 383221 billion dollar
opportunity in removal of prism stories from the web.

I can't tell you the details about our platform because we are currently in
stealth mode, but we are the only player in removal of prism stories which we
will completely disrupt in 3 months. At darkness.io we believe that everyone
deserves less prism stories. Our product will bring together prism annoyance,
anti-prism and boredom to introduce synergies that will democratize, and
revolutionize removal of prism stories.

This idea is so potent yet so deceptively simple that it has the capacity to
produce an unlimited amount of profit.

We haven't created our product yet, so we are looking a real javascript
samurai to join our team so they can build it for us. This is a once in a
lifetime opportunity for you to be a part of the next big thing. We have free
food, unlimited vacation, generous equity compensation. Also each week we give
you a new iSpy just for being amazing.

If know javascript and 'want in', just tweet me and you'll be on our uber
game-changing, revolutionary, disruptive team in no time, helping us change
the world!

~~~
brudgers
The alternative is much simpler. Base the business in Europe or elsewhere
outside the US. The US is a big and important market, but there is nothing
preventing cloud services on the scale of AWS moving offshore just as
manufacturing has and professional services are.

If it introduces latency and "credit card call center" style interface
barriers, that doesn't mean it cannot be profitable.

There is a large market which sees itself as receiving no benefit from the
American military-industrial complex as it is manifesting itself on the web.
The laws which enable PRISM may place US companies at a disadvantage. PRISM
affordance is not a feature in most people's minds. Indeed, it is a bug in
many.

~~~
alan_cx
Europe yes, UK no. Our government will happily funnel over anything the US
asks for, including actual people(1).

I'd go French. Because as Eddie Izzard put it (roughly), "the French are
so.... _French_ "

(1)Yes, I am aware of the one single exception. Who I'm not so sure the US
Government wanted to really that bothered with. Bad PR and all that.

~~~
brudgers
The political will to align the UK's interests with the US is just that -
political will. It depends upon a mandate from the people, not the law of
gravity. Political constants are lexically scoped within representative forms
of democracy.

------
apineda
This is the same absurdity as boycotting airlines because of TSA. Boycott your
government.

~~~
Ma8ee
Your government is owned by your corporations. Thus, the best way to get to
your government is doing something the hurts your companies' bottom line.

~~~
zobzu
Because.. yours isn't, maybe. ha ha ha.

