In Patriot Act haunts Google service, Simon Avery explains why google services are not as popular as google has wished it to be:

The U.S. Patriot Act, passed in the weeks after the September, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, gives authorities the means to secretly view personal data held by U.S. organizations. It is at odds with Canada’s privacy laws, which require organizations to protect private information and inform individuals when their data has been shared.

That is, you have to decide whether you need to spend large amount of money for a cms including email, or waive your right of privacy for a cheap solution that is based in the U.S. Really, however, it’s a question of whether the law that regulates your country, your profession and your clients’ privacy information will tolerate the Patriot Act requirements. Worse, gmail is clever, because it needs to analyze the content of email and usage habits to determine the advertisement it wishes to show you. If you’re clever for one purpose, you can be for another. Or, if you’re running out of money, the question is really, “You have to decide which law you are going to break,” as Professor Darren Meister has said. Complying with the law is costly these days.

If you feel happy because you don’t use gmail, think again. Read the following passage from Global Financial Warriors by John B. Taylor:

SWIFT — formally the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication — is a Belgian company that operates a messaging system to transmit information related to financial transactions between banks around the world. There is a huge amount of information in SWIFT, and through the program developed at that time, subpoenas were issued to SWIFT to obtain some of that information. Using the information from SWIFT, intelligence experts could then map out terrorist networks and fill in missing links in chains of terrorists. The information was useful for targeting and disrupting terrorist acts. Authorized by such legislation as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), the program was fully legal under U.S. law. (pages 19 — 20)

For the rest of the story, read, Bank data is sifted by U.S. in secret to block terror and Bank data, terror and the Times both from the New York Times.