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If you exchange information internationally, you must strengthen data protection. Those are two sides of the same coin.

U.S. intelligence has the legal right to monitor foreign communications as they go through to U.S. service providers. However, even though something is legal doesn't make it right. I'm not American; I don't really care about what data is being collected about American citizens. I'm worried about us, the foreigners.

I think it could be the biggest information problem that we face. 'If somebody is abroad and they even mention the name of an American citizen, bang, off goes the tap, and no more information is collected.

I think if we're going to live in this - in this world - in this technological world where information can be disseminated so quickly, we have to be serious and take firm, strong action against those who are putting American lives at risk. Because this will put people's lives at risk.

The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.

Foreigners like me have no privacy rights whatsoever. Yet we keep using U.S.-based services all the time, making us a legal target for gathering and storing our private information. Other countries do surveillance as well. But nobody has the global visibility that United States does.

So rather than face the bitter truth, China has placed severe restrictions on the Internet and enlisted America's high-tech companies as their Internet police.

If you combat an international phenomenon, it is indispensable to share information internationally.

As our country increasingly relies on electronic information storage and communication, it is imperative that our Government amend our information security laws accordingly.

The question is how much of your privacy and your convenience and your commerce do you want your nation's security apparatus to squeeze in order to keep you safe? And it is a choice that we have to make.