I hate to break it to you but France and Germany both have intelligence agencies that operate in the same way as GCHQ, both are allied with the NSA (although no

I hate to break it to you but France and Germany both have intelligence agencies that operate in the same way as GCHQ, both are allied with the NSA (although not to the same extent), and all of these governments care equally little about the matter. There is no EU exceptionalism here - their agencies just aren't quite as well funded or quite as good at hacking. But the differences are minor. Perhaps you believe that whilst the member states are pro-mass surveillance, the EU itself isn't? https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-spy-school-defense-poised-to-launch-boost-electronic-warfare-skills/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-spy-school-defense-po... There's no real difference between countries on the matter of mass surveillance. I wish it were the case, but it's also hard to argue that they should be totally pro-privacy and shutting down their intelligence agencies when the public doesn't care and in fact, a big chunk of the public wants better protection from terrorism. Whilst the consensus on sites like HN may well be that mass surveillance is dangerous and bad, that argument hasn't been won with the general public. At least, not yet.