I've had a few drinks, so this may come back to bite me in the ass one day, rather than show my usual constraint, but:
Hell yeah. They have had the right to read the subject lines of emails for decades they have been listening in on conversations since the Patriot Act. It's at the point where I, as a Canadian, have vowed not to take a flight into the states due to privacy (both in terms of fingerprints as well as those stupid scanners) until the law changes.
This is starting to impact peaceful, intelligent people. It isn't showing the economic ramifications yet, but it will 10 to 20 years from now. The smart people from Canada (and, presumably, the rest of the world) don't want to come anymore. The US can suffer this in the short term, but in the long term, especially with long term obligations like SS and Medicare/Medicaid, it cannot.
You are too late. The smart people already do not come to the United States. The smart people are cancelling their US passports. Capital is not entering the USA. This type of work puts bread on the table for me. I'm in Dubai right now meeting people who need to encapsulate and neutralize the US-caused problems in their lives. Last week I was in Indonesia.
The world a big world. Someone can live a good life and become a billionaire without touching the USA. The US risks declaring itself irrelevant through its treatment of isitors and investors. And through the entirely execrable FATCA.
I remember growing up as a boy in Africa how the pound sterling went from reserve currency status to "who cares" by a series of lackluster Prime Ministers in Britain. The same is happening in the US.
"As a result of FATCA, European banks such as Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, HSBC, and Credit Suisse have been closing brokerage accounts for all US customers since early 2011 citing "onerous" US regulations, which FATCA will make more complex when it goes into effect in 2013"
Reported by Der Spiegel (which I expect to be a reputable source).
Hell yeah. They have had the right to read the subject lines of emails for decades they have been listening in on conversations since the Patriot Act. It's at the point where I, as a Canadian, have vowed not to take a flight into the states due to privacy (both in terms of fingerprints as well as those stupid scanners) until the law changes.
This is starting to impact peaceful, intelligent people. It isn't showing the economic ramifications yet, but it will 10 to 20 years from now. The smart people from Canada (and, presumably, the rest of the world) don't want to come anymore. The US can suffer this in the short term, but in the long term, especially with long term obligations like SS and Medicare/Medicaid, it cannot.