Every data centre is a U.S. military base

 

Understanding how the United States uses its tech companies to serve empire

In February, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its chief prosecutor, British lawyer Karim Khan. The move came in response to the court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the crimes against humanity he committed in the ongoing Gaza genocide.

The move was outrageous for many reasons, and not even the first time the United States had sanctioned an ICC chief prosecutor. Khan’s predecessor was also in Trump’s crosshairs when she opened an investigation into crimes in Afghanistan, where the actions of the United States would not be excluded. 

The sanctions on Khan hampered the work of the court, and he found that not only were his UK bank accounts frozen, but he also lost access to his Microsoft email address. He ended up switching to Swiss privacy-focused provider Proton Mail. While it has not made the same impact in Canada, the news about Khan losing his access to Microsoft services quickly rippled through the halls of power across Europe when it was revealed in May.

The withdrawal of service showed European lawmakers how vulnerable their access to the technologies they rely on not just in their personal lives, but to run governments and key institutions. They were also facing escalating pressure from the Trump administration and the billionaires of Silicon Valley to roll back their world-leading tech regulations, and U.S. Vice President JD Vance showed up on the continent a week after Khan was sanctioned to lecture Europe about its values, approach to free speech, and attempts to exclude the neo-Nazi party Alternative for Germany from political power.

Microsoft tried to distance itself from the controversy, but even its spokesperson admitted there had been a “disconnection of [the court’s] sanctioned official.” The company didn’t help its case when Microsoft France’s director of public and legal affairs told the French Senate under oath in June that it “cannot guarantee” it would be able to deny requests from the Trump administration for data stored on its servers within the European Union.

As European lawmakers grew increasingly concerned about a U.S. digital “kill switch” and the security of the cloud services supplied by major U.S. companies they’d come to rely on, one thing was clear: they were not nearly as sovereign as they previously believed, and their dependence on U.S. tech had to be addressed.  (more...)

Every data centre is a U.S. military base