NSA Snooping is Hurting US Tech Businesses

July 29, 2013
by John Backus

I recently wrote an article for the Washington Post that warned of the dangers of CALEA — an existing statute that the FBI is trying to transmogrify to force software developers to build in backdoors for the FBI. Well, the data is starting to come in.Foreign cloud service providers are now actively marketing against US companies. Computer World reports that 10% of non-US companies cancelled contracts with US cloud providers, and that 56% are having second thoughts about working with US cloud providewrs. If CALEA happens as the FBI wants, we can expect this trend to extend to US startup companies writing apps and s0ftware as well.

That is why New Atlantic Ventures joined Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and many others to sign a letter to our elected officials asking them to bring more transparency to government surveillance. The Center for Democracy and Technology is spearheading this effort. It is worthy of support from all of the entrepreneurial community.

Originally published at navfund.com.