I've been advocating for a US version of those data protection laws since the mid 90s. Unfortunately progress has been slow, often because of the traditional paranoia about any kind of government regulation.

As usual, we will probably have to wait until a lot of people start experiencing negative effects. Nobody cares until it hurs them personally.

The EU's data protection laws have exemptions for the prevention, detection and prosecution of criminal offenses as well as national security and defense. I don't see why law enforcement in Europe couldn't do the exact same thing as was done here.