Angela Merkel wants to wall off European data from the NSA. If ever there was evidence of dysfunction in the free world, this is it. The technical foolhardiness of the idea, which the Financial Times noted in its report, makes the initiative more likely to launch a war of words than truly divide the internet. […]
A serious trust has been breached on two levels. First, by WikiLeaks so that nary a foreign contact will wish ever to speak, or at least speak with candor, to even the lowliest Foreign Service personnel. But second, also by the notion, and the threat to life and limb, that we use our Foreign Service personnel as low-cost spies.