The European Union considers NSA spying a “trade barrier”

The U.S. National Security Agency’s mass surveillance is a trade barrier for European Internet companies trying to provide services in the United States, a top EU official said on Monday. U.S. citizens are deterred from using European e-mail providers because they do not get the same protection as they would by using U.S. providers, said Paul Nemitz, a director in the European Commission’s justice department. “The law … which empowers the NSA to basically grab everything which comes from outside the United States, is a real trade barrier to a European digital company to provide services to Americans inside America,” Nemitz, who is overseeing an overhaul of the EU’s 20-year-old data protection rules, said at a conference on data protection in Paris. In other words, an American in the United States using a European service does not have the same level of protection as he would if he used an American service. Using a European service, his communication is transmitted outside the United States, so it is subject to interception.