US Firms Worry Edward Snowden Is Wrecking Their Business, But The Patriot Act Was Already Doing That

Shortly after a meeting of an EU-sponsored program to push European cloud-computing capabilities in Estonia last month, a high-ranking EC official noted that the biggest losers from Edward Snowden’s revelation about US surveillance would be US businesses:

If European cloud customers cannot trust the United States government or their assurances, then maybe they won’t trust US cloud providers either. That is my guess. And if I am right then there are multi-billion euro consequences for American companies.

If I were an American cloud provider, I would be quite frustrated with my government right now.

American firms certainly are frustrated—so frustrated they have produced two reports in a span of two weeks, both arguing that the US government needs to fix this problem. [...]