Superbly written. As a US citizen I mourn the loss of our data privacy. Once your private information is out, it can never be protected again.
Add to that fact the reckless and capricious actions of the present US government and we are all screwed. It's been reported a "DOGE" hire of FElon Musk stole Social Security Data on a thumb drive and took it with him to a new job.
I don't trust the US government's decision-making with a book of wet matches. Everything it touches is a clown show dumpster fire.
Why anyone would use an American server is beyond me. Their government can obtain access anytime no matter where the server is located. If you have valuable data (to whatever extent you want to place value on it) you should keep it where it is not accessible to a government. Also, please remember that'in the cloud' means on someone else's computer.
Canada is in a bit of a middle position right now.
We use a lot of U.S. tech infrastructure... cloud platforms, data systems, AI tools... but we also have privacy laws and security reviews that try to limit how sensitive government data is handled.
The real debate coming isn’t about the technology itself.
It’s about data sovereignty... making sure critical national systems aren’t dependent on companies or jurisdictions outside Canada’s control.
I wish the UK government had considered this fact before selling the management of England’s national health service data to Palantir. They have also outsourced the data collection by several UK regional police forces to the same company. Who knows how compromised the UK’s military intelligence has become ? Authoritarian corporatocracy is quickly replacing rule of law democracy in both the US & UK. Perhaps the original aim of the Maxwell Family’s (est. 1970s) criminal oligarch’s global network ?
Monnina, the UK debate around Palantir has definitely been intense.
The concern many analysts raise isn’t necessarily about one company alone, but about how deeply critical national data systems become integrated into a single proprietary platform.
Once that happens, governments have to think carefully about dependency, oversight, and legal jurisdiction... which is exactly the sovereignty issue Switzerland highlighted in its evaluation.
Thanks. The UK has a recent history of failure regarding state oversight of institutional corruption and criminality. No one living in the UK (& especially Northern Ireland where I presently live), could sanely have any faith in trusting the present UK’s ruling political class to protect them from corporate vultures. Switzerland has a very different current political state and judicial landscape.
Excellent reporting as usual. We may ask: "well, so what? Data has to be stored someplace. Why not the US?"
Here's why.
Regarding American high level military behaviour, the following statement was made by Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, USA, March 2026.
“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives.”
Unless repudiated or limited, specifically and authoritatively, by someone more senior than the Secretary of Defense, we should assume this statement is official US Government policy across all departments going forward, both domestically and internationally. This US government posture represents an existential threat to every nation and therefore must be confronted and stopped at the gate.
Despite the fact that the digital world respects no territorial borders, data centres actually are located inside territorial borders. There is no such thing as "the cloud". That's just a convenient term coined by Big Tech to create the illusion of "no borders" when in fact server farms very much exist and consume local resources and hire local humans.
Big Tech is American based and would also like you to believe that the First Amendment of the US Constitution applies and that further, because the "cloud" is borderless, foreign sovereign tax laws shouldn't apply.
Independent nations are waking up to the realization that they've been bamboozled by Big Tech since the beginning. Data is national as are rights and obligations.
Sadly, successive Australian governments have exposed us to the digital rape by American private companies. Our sycophantic crawling to the USA governments and big business, means we are utterly reliant on their systems and even leaves us open to information gathering, coercion and blackmail.
Over the past 25 years most Western countries built their digital infrastructure around American platforms because they were simply the most advanced at the time.
Now governments are starting to realize that technology dependency can also become strategic dependency.
That’s why you’re seeing countries like Switzerland, France, and Germany beginning to rethink parts of that model.
If only US voters would get their information from non corporate news/media outlets such as your posts. I was under the impression Palantir and other stocks surged largely due to buy backs which I also believe is less stable than stock rising due to a good product. Please correct any misinformation. As always, I learn so much from you - news and economic connections. Thank you.
Switzerland’s decision is interesting, but it is also part of a broader structural shift that has been building for several years.
What the Swiss evaluation highlights is something governments across Europe are only now beginning to articulate clearly: data infrastructure is no longer a neutral technology choice. It is strategic infrastructure.
When a government integrates its intelligence, health, financial, and security databases into a single proprietary platform operated under a foreign legal jurisdiction, the question is no longer just about software performance. It becomes a question of legal reach and political leverage.
Under laws such as the U.S. CLOUD Act, American authorities can compel companies under U.S. jurisdiction to provide access to data, even when that data is stored abroad. Whether that power would ever be used against a European government is almost beside the point. For national security planners, the mere existence of that legal pathway creates a structural vulnerability.
This is exactly the same logic now driving several other European initiatives:
• European sovereign cloud projects in France and Germany
• EU data-localisation rules for sensitive government datasets
• Defence procurement rules that increasingly prioritise European suppliers
What Switzerland effectively demonstrated is the lock-in problem. Once a government’s data architecture is deeply embedded in a proprietary analytics ecosystem, exiting that system can become technically and financially prohibitive. In other words, the dependency becomes permanent.
That is why Swiss evaluators framed the issue not as a procurement decision, but as a national-sovereignty calculation.
And this is where the story becomes geopolitically significant.
For decades, the United States dominated three layers of the global technology stack:
Semiconductors
Cloud infrastructure
Data analytics platforms
Europe is now trying — slowly and unevenly — to reduce its exposure to each of those layers.
Not by excluding American firms outright, but by ensuring that the most sensitive state systems remain under domestic legal control.
In that sense, Switzerland’s decision is less a “warning shot” at Silicon Valley and more a signal of something deeper:
Governments are beginning to treat data sovereignty the way they once treated energy security or defence supply chains.
And once states start thinking about technology in those terms, procurement decisions tend to cascade.
What looks today like nine quiet rejections in Bern may, over time, become a much wider reassessment across Europe.
Because the real strategic question is no longer:
Which software platform is the most powerful?
It is:
Who ultimately controls the system once it is installed?
Once governments begin treating data infrastructure as strategic infrastructure, the entire procurement logic changes.
The Swiss case is interesting precisely because they made that sovereignty calculation explicit. As you say, once that thinking enters the policy bloodstream, the decisions tend to cascade.
What looks like a quiet technical rejection today can easily become a structural shift in how states think about technology dependency.
Wow thank you for sharing this amazing article. You really have the goods here.
It’s amazing to see how Switzerland takes care of their precious data …. SO INLIKE ERICA THEY USEIT AGAINST EVERYONE BUT THE FUCKING RAPIST TRUMP AND HIS FILTHY VILE GOONS
The bigger takeaway from the story isn’t really about one country or one politician... it’s about how governments everywhere are starting to treat data infrastructure as a sovereignty issue.
Switzerland just made that calculation very publicly, and now other countries are beginning to look at the same question.
Kay, the reality is no country is ever perfectly protected.
What governments try to do is reduce risk and keep control of the most sensitive systems.
That’s why the idea of data sovereignty is becoming such a big discussion now ... countries want to make sure their critical information stays under their own legal authority.
I came to understand about this time last year, how insidious A.I. has become.
Most people don't want or need A.I.
Most people don't want or need Data Centers.
Governments & Politicians have been falling all over themselves as multi-billionaire corporations Ike Amazon, Alphabet, & Apple all bribe politicians to get the permits & zoning & tax breaks for these massive facilities.
I bought an A.I. enabled smart phone this time last year and it is something I deeply regret.
My ideas, my words, my thoughts are all being run through A.I. algorithms and it's creepy as fuck.
I don't want or need suggestions about anything in my life.
I am intelligent, relatively well-adjusted, employed, healthy, and aware.
Michael, a lot of people share that feeling right now.
The pace of AI and data infrastructure expansion has been extremely fast, and most citizens never really had a public debate about it first.
At the same time, AI systems are already deeply embedded in things people use every day... banking systems, logistics, medical research, weather forecasting, fraud detection, and a lot more.
The real question governments and societies are beginning to wrestle with isn’t whether AI exists... it’s how it’s governed, regulated, and where the boundaries should be.
After the Cambridge Analytica Scandal of 2016, I decided to quit Facebook, as many other Americans also quit them.
The Mark Zuckerberg betrayal was novel at the time, but now we see the true agenda of Silicon Valley.
In December of 2016, I requested through their official Facebook channel, to receive my entire Facebook data file, per their Terms Of Service at that time.
I never got it.
Facebook has been silent about it ever since.
My account still sits there.
I have no idea what's going on with it, since I haven't opened Facebook for nearly 10 years.
My data belongs to me.
My pictures.
My messages.
Never trust a corporation.
Never trust a government.
Why was this never a class action lawsuit by the ACLU or Democracy Docket ?
Michael, the Cambridge Analytica episode definitely changed how a lot of people think about data.
One thing many users discovered afterward is that getting a complete copy of your data from large platforms isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds, especially if accounts go inactive or policies change over time.
The broader issue it exposed... and what governments are now debating... is who ultimately controls and governs personal data once it enters large digital platforms.
Superbly written. As a US citizen I mourn the loss of our data privacy. Once your private information is out, it can never be protected again.
Add to that fact the reckless and capricious actions of the present US government and we are all screwed. It's been reported a "DOGE" hire of FElon Musk stole Social Security Data on a thumb drive and took it with him to a new job.
I don't trust the US government's decision-making with a book of wet matches. Everything it touches is a clown show dumpster fire.
Laura, that’s exactly the concern Switzerland flagged.
Once critical government data sits inside someone else’s technology stack, sovereignty and privacy become the same issue.
That’s why Europe is starting to draw harder lines.
So this reflects what in the US since we engaged body and soul with Planatir ? Total loss of our data privacy
I wouldn’t say “total loss,” but it does change the equation.
In the digital age, control of the platform often matters more than the data itself.
That’s why some governments are starting to rethink how much of their infrastructure they outsource.
Why anyone would use an American server is beyond me. Their government can obtain access anytime no matter where the server is located. If you have valuable data (to whatever extent you want to place value on it) you should keep it where it is not accessible to a government. Also, please remember that'in the cloud' means on someone else's computer.
Keith, that’s the uncomfortable truth of the modern internet.
“The cloud” is just a polite way of saying your data lives on someone else’s machine in someone else’s jurisdiction.
And that’s exactly the sovereignty issue countries are waking up to.
I have lost track of the number of times I have had to explain this to people, including a client we had to recover data for after a ransom attack.
I would love to know where Canada fits into this equation?
Good question Ron.
Canada is in a bit of a middle position right now.
We use a lot of U.S. tech infrastructure... cloud platforms, data systems, AI tools... but we also have privacy laws and security reviews that try to limit how sensitive government data is handled.
The real debate coming isn’t about the technology itself.
It’s about data sovereignty... making sure critical national systems aren’t dependent on companies or jurisdictions outside Canada’s control.
That conversation is only just starting here.
Data sovereignty should be a priority right from the get go. A government giving its critical data to a foreign nation, friend or not, is absurd.
I wish the UK government had considered this fact before selling the management of England’s national health service data to Palantir. They have also outsourced the data collection by several UK regional police forces to the same company. Who knows how compromised the UK’s military intelligence has become ? Authoritarian corporatocracy is quickly replacing rule of law democracy in both the US & UK. Perhaps the original aim of the Maxwell Family’s (est. 1970s) criminal oligarch’s global network ?
Monnina, the UK debate around Palantir has definitely been intense.
The concern many analysts raise isn’t necessarily about one company alone, but about how deeply critical national data systems become integrated into a single proprietary platform.
Once that happens, governments have to think carefully about dependency, oversight, and legal jurisdiction... which is exactly the sovereignty issue Switzerland highlighted in its evaluation.
Thanks. The UK has a recent history of failure regarding state oversight of institutional corruption and criminality. No one living in the UK (& especially Northern Ireland where I presently live), could sanely have any faith in trusting the present UK’s ruling political class to protect them from corporate vultures. Switzerland has a very different current political state and judicial landscape.
Wow! Ya Fred, a few of us want to know where Canada stands on our data? If you know? Curiosity killed the cat you know haha
Curiosity didn’t kill the cat Patsy... it just made the cat smarter. 😄
Canada sits somewhere in the middle right now.
We use a lot of U.S. tech systems, but governments are starting to realize data control is a sovereignty issue, not just a tech decision.
That debate is only getting started here.
Next, to get the ba$tards and their fascist solutions out of the UK.
Excellent reporting as usual. We may ask: "well, so what? Data has to be stored someplace. Why not the US?"
Here's why.
Regarding American high level military behaviour, the following statement was made by Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, USA, March 2026.
“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives.”
Unless repudiated or limited, specifically and authoritatively, by someone more senior than the Secretary of Defense, we should assume this statement is official US Government policy across all departments going forward, both domestically and internationally. This US government posture represents an existential threat to every nation and therefore must be confronted and stopped at the gate.
Ray, the digital world changed the definition of territory.
Today, control over data infrastructure can matter as much as physical borders.
That’s why more countries are starting to look at technology platforms through the lens of national security rather than just convenience.
Despite the fact that the digital world respects no territorial borders, data centres actually are located inside territorial borders. There is no such thing as "the cloud". That's just a convenient term coined by Big Tech to create the illusion of "no borders" when in fact server farms very much exist and consume local resources and hire local humans.
Big Tech is American based and would also like you to believe that the First Amendment of the US Constitution applies and that further, because the "cloud" is borderless, foreign sovereign tax laws shouldn't apply.
Independent nations are waking up to the realization that they've been bamboozled by Big Tech since the beginning. Data is national as are rights and obligations.
BINGO!
Sadly, successive Australian governments have exposed us to the digital rape by American private companies. Our sycophantic crawling to the USA governments and big business, means we are utterly reliant on their systems and even leaves us open to information gathering, coercion and blackmail.
Clive, Australia isn’t alone in that situation.
Over the past 25 years most Western countries built their digital infrastructure around American platforms because they were simply the most advanced at the time.
Now governments are starting to realize that technology dependency can also become strategic dependency.
That’s why you’re seeing countries like Switzerland, France, and Germany beginning to rethink parts of that model.
If only US voters would get their information from non corporate news/media outlets such as your posts. I was under the impression Palantir and other stocks surged largely due to buy backs which I also believe is less stable than stock rising due to a good product. Please correct any misinformation. As always, I learn so much from you - news and economic connections. Thank you.
Thanks Zoe, that’s very kind of you.
Buybacks can boost a stock, but Palantir’s surge is more about investors betting big on AI and government data analytics.
The tricky part is the valuation now assumes everything goes right... and as Switzerland just showed, politics can suddenly enter the equation.
FRED FERGUSON (GEEZERWISE)
Switzerland’s decision is interesting, but it is also part of a broader structural shift that has been building for several years.
What the Swiss evaluation highlights is something governments across Europe are only now beginning to articulate clearly: data infrastructure is no longer a neutral technology choice. It is strategic infrastructure.
When a government integrates its intelligence, health, financial, and security databases into a single proprietary platform operated under a foreign legal jurisdiction, the question is no longer just about software performance. It becomes a question of legal reach and political leverage.
Under laws such as the U.S. CLOUD Act, American authorities can compel companies under U.S. jurisdiction to provide access to data, even when that data is stored abroad. Whether that power would ever be used against a European government is almost beside the point. For national security planners, the mere existence of that legal pathway creates a structural vulnerability.
This is exactly the same logic now driving several other European initiatives:
• European sovereign cloud projects in France and Germany
• EU data-localisation rules for sensitive government datasets
• Defence procurement rules that increasingly prioritise European suppliers
What Switzerland effectively demonstrated is the lock-in problem. Once a government’s data architecture is deeply embedded in a proprietary analytics ecosystem, exiting that system can become technically and financially prohibitive. In other words, the dependency becomes permanent.
That is why Swiss evaluators framed the issue not as a procurement decision, but as a national-sovereignty calculation.
And this is where the story becomes geopolitically significant.
For decades, the United States dominated three layers of the global technology stack:
Semiconductors
Cloud infrastructure
Data analytics platforms
Europe is now trying — slowly and unevenly — to reduce its exposure to each of those layers.
Not by excluding American firms outright, but by ensuring that the most sensitive state systems remain under domestic legal control.
In that sense, Switzerland’s decision is less a “warning shot” at Silicon Valley and more a signal of something deeper:
Governments are beginning to treat data sovereignty the way they once treated energy security or defence supply chains.
And once states start thinking about technology in those terms, procurement decisions tend to cascade.
What looks today like nine quiet rejections in Bern may, over time, become a much wider reassessment across Europe.
Because the real strategic question is no longer:
Which software platform is the most powerful?
It is:
Who ultimately controls the system once it is installed?
Hans, that’s an excellent framing.
Once governments begin treating data infrastructure as strategic infrastructure, the entire procurement logic changes.
The Swiss case is interesting precisely because they made that sovereignty calculation explicit. As you say, once that thinking enters the policy bloodstream, the decisions tend to cascade.
What looks like a quiet technical rejection today can easily become a structural shift in how states think about technology dependency.
Thank you Fred
Palantir is run by insane drug addicts
Wow thank you for sharing this amazing article. You really have the goods here.
It’s amazing to see how Switzerland takes care of their precious data …. SO INLIKE ERICA THEY USEIT AGAINST EVERYONE BUT THE FUCKING RAPIST TRUMP AND HIS FILTHY VILE GOONS
Thanks Velvet, I appreciate the kind words.
The bigger takeaway from the story isn’t really about one country or one politician... it’s about how governments everywhere are starting to treat data infrastructure as a sovereignty issue.
Switzerland just made that calculation very publicly, and now other countries are beginning to look at the same question.
If only we were protected
Kay, the reality is no country is ever perfectly protected.
What governments try to do is reduce risk and keep control of the most sensitive systems.
That’s why the idea of data sovereignty is becoming such a big discussion now ... countries want to make sure their critical information stays under their own legal authority.
I came to understand about this time last year, how insidious A.I. has become.
Most people don't want or need A.I.
Most people don't want or need Data Centers.
Governments & Politicians have been falling all over themselves as multi-billionaire corporations Ike Amazon, Alphabet, & Apple all bribe politicians to get the permits & zoning & tax breaks for these massive facilities.
I bought an A.I. enabled smart phone this time last year and it is something I deeply regret.
My ideas, my words, my thoughts are all being run through A.I. algorithms and it's creepy as fuck.
I don't want or need suggestions about anything in my life.
I am intelligent, relatively well-adjusted, employed, healthy, and aware.
I don't want or need A.I. or Data Centers.
Michael, a lot of people share that feeling right now.
The pace of AI and data infrastructure expansion has been extremely fast, and most citizens never really had a public debate about it first.
At the same time, AI systems are already deeply embedded in things people use every day... banking systems, logistics, medical research, weather forecasting, fraud detection, and a lot more.
The real question governments and societies are beginning to wrestle with isn’t whether AI exists... it’s how it’s governed, regulated, and where the boundaries should be.
After the Cambridge Analytica Scandal of 2016, I decided to quit Facebook, as many other Americans also quit them.
The Mark Zuckerberg betrayal was novel at the time, but now we see the true agenda of Silicon Valley.
In December of 2016, I requested through their official Facebook channel, to receive my entire Facebook data file, per their Terms Of Service at that time.
I never got it.
Facebook has been silent about it ever since.
My account still sits there.
I have no idea what's going on with it, since I haven't opened Facebook for nearly 10 years.
My data belongs to me.
My pictures.
My messages.
Never trust a corporation.
Never trust a government.
Why was this never a class action lawsuit by the ACLU or Democracy Docket ?
Michael, the Cambridge Analytica episode definitely changed how a lot of people think about data.
One thing many users discovered afterward is that getting a complete copy of your data from large platforms isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds, especially if accounts go inactive or policies change over time.
The broader issue it exposed... and what governments are now debating... is who ultimately controls and governs personal data once it enters large digital platforms.
That conversation is still evolving.
Good for the Swiss I hope every other country does the same we all need a new internet provider too.