The Anti-Surveillance Strategies That Could Ruin the Internet

The post-Snowden world is a little like a new parent suddenly worrying about the security of its baby… data. Governments, companies, and citizens alike are now wrestling with how to secure it. Over the past year, Europe has been discussing proposals intended to address foreign surveillance on governments, individuals, and companies. The problem is that many proposals, in fact, do not make data more secure while contributing to an Internet that is less free and open for all of us.

The term you need to know, the one that’s driving a lot of these proposals, is ​“technological sovereignty” – or the idea individual countries should have control of their citizens’ data and Internet traffic.

What these proposals all have in common is the premise that they can and will help secure the data of people, companies, and governments in Europe. And yet, from laying new undersea cables, and localized routing to data storage initiatives, the vast majority of these proposals lack the foresight to actually protect data.

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