I 'm actually shocked that people are OK with that. People in countries that have had dictatorships recently probably remember that. Snitches everywhere, the police raiding houses again and again for no reason, with no recourse and people were just accepting it.

Lots of places don't have strong constitutional protections, for anything.

Not that long ago, the government in Canada started freezing citizen's bank accounts on suspicions they donated small amounts to a certain peaceful organization organizing protests the government didn't like. They just decided to suspend the constitution (because that's a thing over there?).

But what's interesting to see is people from Europe and Commonwealth nations voting with their feet and deciding that they too want more constitutional protections (which they are entitled to!). Here in the Bay it seems there's a constant interest from EU nationals to move to America (judging by the volume of applications we get). But I've never heard anyone interested to do the reverse.

Top destination for EU nationals in Academia was... right here in the US [0].

Interesting to speculate what impact the policies imposed by these non-elected EU bureaucrats will have on this demographic. More brain drain? Is it the intended goal?

[0] http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-bra...

> Private communication is private and absolutely nobody else's business. It's a crime to open somebody's mail.

I thought we were talking in the context of the EU? It's not a crime for them if the government is doing it (or asking for it). They don't have rights like that.