This is because cloud computing requires fast, cheap broadband which Australia presently lacks.

Apple site of what backed up.

“What is backed up

You get unlimited free storage for:

Purchased music, TV shows, apps, and books *

You get 5GB of free iCloud storage for:

Photos and videos in the Camera Roll
Device settings (for example: Phone Favorites, Wallpaper, and Mail, Contacts, Calendar accounts)
App data
Home screen and app organization
Messages (iMessage, SMS, and MMS)
Ringtones”

Don’t know if they include actually email content but it does seem to include mail contacts which may contain information covered under the privacy act. Not to mention SMS MMS and photos taken with the phone.
Data for LoB applications that is cached on the phone?

FFS.

For example, say I met a confidential source for coffee at a certain cafe and paid for it with my credit card. Say that source worked upstairs from said cafe, and was giving me information about secret government programs. If law enforcement wanted to make a case against me, they could use that information to establish a case for searching that source’s files.

You may laugh, but I’ve seen plenty of similar things happen to other journalists in the past. The less people who have access to your supposedly private information, the better.

How about you give me all the money in your wallet? I promise i wont spend it, i will only hold onto it. Being that i said that i am not going to use the money, you shouldn’t have a problem with it right?

Use that same same, and swap the words ‘money in your wallet’ with ‘data on your sever’.
Still think the same way?

That’s the way I think of it. I don’t care if my data is in the USA as I don’t do anything suspicious or illegal nor would any cloud storage service be my only backup EVER.

I mean have a look at how much of your personal data is offshore, or able to be accessed offshore, you call telstra and who is on the other end identifying you? do you have GMAIL, where does google have data centers again (I think google has servers here too but your data is DEFIANTLY in the USA).

You see we are just so screwed in this day and age so all we got to bank on is that there are too many of us using cloud services for any close monitoring to go on.

Maybe one day our government will realize how much money they are losing, for themselves and US companies, with their actions. Because that’s about the only way things will change (SOPA-style uprisings notwithstanding, though those are rare and the nefarious perpetrators of that monstrosity are already trying different plans of attack).

As for “dick laws”, yes, many of ours unfortunately are. Companies can be even sued in the US by other countries’ government-funded research organizations over invalid patents — re: CSIRO & WiFi (sorry, couldn’t resist :)

It’s great that this kind of thinking is so popular in Australia that the USA is crying about it. :-D In Germany is US = cool, (okay, actually it’s more Apple = cool, but iCloud means storing your personal data in the US in the end).

BTW there are some providers here in the us that do push back and just don’t bend over to every requests of the government, however be warned they are very few and far between. However once there are “badges at the door”, 99.99% will comply.

Let me echo another sentiment expressed by some comments from Americans in this thread – I’m 37 spent my whole life here, it’s no longer the same country I grew up in as a kid, and many of us can see a return to those days is highly unlikely no matter what action we take as citizens, the rubicon has been crossed. After 235 their isn’t anything seriously wrong with the firmware but the OS is in serious need of a reboot, .

@TenTen – Here’s a tip when it comes to the titles of most legislative works since the 90′s in the US, whatever the title of the bill is, the content contained in it does the opposite or produces the opposite effect what the title would have a layman imagine.