First of all Netanyahu is not a war criminal. He has not been convicted of any war crimes. Even if for a microsecond we entertain the idea that the ICC has any relationship to justice or morality then people are still innocent until proven guilty. At least in the world we want to live in, i.e. not China or Russia or most other countries where freedom and human rights do not exist. And the ICC is a political circus not a real court.

The US is going after the ICC because it perceives the ICC to be working against its interests and for the interests of the non-free/non-democratic world. If the spinless Europeans weren't, eh, spineless, then they would be working with the US here.

It is also totally antisemitic to say Israel has a stronghold over the US. Just because you make a disclaimer doesn't make it less so. Israel has no hold over the US. Last I checked the Saudis and the Qatari have a lot more influence. It just happens that there is an alignment of interests here. The US doesn't wish to yield any sovereignty to these fake and corrupt institutions serving autocratic regimes any more than Israel does. Israel carries its weight in its alliance with the US far more than other so called allies.

Every decent person and country should be standing with other countries that support democracy and freedom. Yes, the current US president and administration are not great, and the current Israeli government ain't great either, but at least in democracies we can replace them. Unlike most of the world that's a) much worse b) people have no voice. So between the option of our imperfect western democracies and the likes of Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, I know what I'm picking. And those are the forces seeking to divide and destroy the west so that they can take over.

International surveillance, on the other hand, doesn't give two shits about GDPR. Likewise, in the US, they pay private firms and other governments to spy on their own citizens to get around the 4th and 5th Amendments.

Limiting spying to nation-state actors only - and prohibiting cross-border surveillance cooperation - would do an insane amount of good for plugging the data drain.

Obviously this is not something EU citizens want. If we wanted it, we would issue laws that gave the military and police the right to do it themselves. The only reason that this roundabout way came to exist is that such surveillance would not pass unnoticed by voters.

There are some "more local" alternatives. Sweden for example can (and as rumors goes, do) use neighboring countries like Denmark to spy on Swedish citizens by looking at network traffic that goes over the border. People have argued however that this is a bit worse of an deal since you don't get access to the larger intelligence network that US has, and you also have to trust your neighbors with possible sensitive data.

> Consent is presumed not to be freely given [..] if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance.

https://noyb.eu/en/pay-or-okay-explained-why-more-and-more-w...

> the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) is working on a binding opinion on 'Pay or Consent', which will determine whether Europeans continue to have a realistic option to protect their privacy online. If the approach is legitimised for Meta, companies across all industries could follow suit - which would mark the end of genuine consent to the use of European's data.