French Telco Orange Plans To Sue The NSA For Tapping Its Undersea Cables

[Mike]

It's not entirely clear what form this will take, but the French telco Orange is claiming that it is planning to file a lawsuit over the news that the NSA has been tapping its undersea fiber optic cables.

France-based telecom firm Orange has revealed plans to take legal action against the US National Security Agency (NSA) for using its submarine cable for surveillance.....

An Orange spokeswoman was quoted by Reuters as saying: "We will take legal action in the next few days because we want to know more about the eventuality that Orange data may have been intercepted."

Again, I'm not sure under what jurisdiction or exactly what kind of lawsuit Orange is intending to bring, but it's yet another bit of blowback against the NSA's overreach in its efforts to spy on absolutely everyone. If Orange is able to succeed, I imagine that a variety of other companies might also look at lawsuits. We're generally highly critical of trade agreements that create corporate sovereignty programs, called "investor state dispute settlement" panels that allow foreign companies to sue governments over interfering with their business, but I wonder if the US's infatuation with these kinds of programs might come back to bite it really hard if it turns out that these mechanisms are used by foreign companies to argue that the NSA has interfered in their business efforts...

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[analogkid6103]

How can they sue them? They must know that there is no expectation of privacy. It will be interesting to see how they plan to proceed and in what platform. The Hague? The Peoples court? LOL The plaintiffs cant sue in US court. And the NSA will never recognize a foreign courts power over them. I suspect it has gone as far as it could go. They are butthurt and they will have to get over it. Next case....