Even before it emerged that the National Security Agency had wiretapped her mobile phone, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was calling for the Internet to have something like Airbus—a joint European initiative able to compete with the dominance of American and Chinese high-tech companies, just as Airbus does with the US aerospace giant Boeing. Currently, the global market for software and online services is firmly in American hands. What’s more, American corporations, such as Google, are subject to the PATRIOT Act, which requires them to allow American intelligence agencies access to their data centers. On the other hand, the equipment that...
