Which works perfectly fine until someone leaks the fact that NSA have full access to those documents, and occasionally will provide help to a few US companies that are seen as important to the nation.
It is hopelessly naive to question this, however some random documented examples in recent times: The NSA got the german BND to spy on european company Airbus. [1] Then there was the Snowden leaks that revealed for example that the NSA was spying on an Brazilian oil company. [2] Then there is the well known case of Shell infiltrating the Nigerian government who then asked the US to spy for them on rival company Gazprom, which was revealed by the diplomatic cable leaks. [3]
Siemens and some other German majors claimed the NSA stole thier trade secrets related to wind turbines and gave them up some American companies. I think they claimed it was done via wire tap.
I'm not sure if this claim was ever validated but it seems wild those fairly boring companies would come out with it over nothing, whereas it is related to of the US services stated mission.
US government access to thier companies customers files has been a compliance issue in Europe for a while because it is hard to claim GDPR compliance if your vendor might be required to leak user data outside the judicial system. This is why privacy shield treaty was needed.
This has been valid even decades before internet took over the world, I recall quite a few articles listed well known cases some years ago. Sure it wont push for some small startup but big corporations, sales of commercial planes, military equipment contracts and similar stuff for billions and more?
CIA/NSA would be failing at its core real mission if they didnt help US interests when they see an opportunity. And with us-based cloud they dont need to hack anything remote, just fill another form and go again in.
Makes me think, having strong privacy laws like ie in Swtzerland is a massive win for given country and its citizens in long term.
