For any person who is not being forced into giving their keys up, encrypting their own files must be safer than hoping a cloud provider won't freely hand them over to the US government.
This is especially true for non-US citizens, who seem to have no protection at all. Even the earlier whistle-blowers don't consider us anything but open season: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...
Fine. If you're foreign, encrypt your files and store them anywhere you like. If you're a US citizen, do the same and know that the government only has them when they force you to hand the keys over.
(Barring them being able to hack them some other way, e.g. simply grabbing your keys off your machine.)
A couple of people have been convicted of refusing to hand over their encryption key.
It's worth noting that this is a separate offence, so there's a determinate prison sentence. You can't be held in contempt of court for refusing to hand it over.
You'd have to keep it on a separate storage medium. And if you have to hand out the done medium, what's preventing them to get your second medium? And if you are able to keep that second medium secret and safe, why don't you store the whole unencrypted data on it in the first place?
Either way: OTPs are really cool, but I don't think they have any relevance here.
Cheers.
"Of the 15 individuals served, 11 did not comply with the notices. Of the 11, seven were charged and two convicted."
Whilst they may have been incarcerated since the report, at the least it would seem that there is some evidence based procedure to determine "guilt" in terms of whether you are able to produce the key or not.
Sure, if the government was going after someone like Steve Muller (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/04/gsm-researcher/) you'd want him to be able to keep his stuff from prying eyes.
What about a Suadi National accused of plotting terror attacks in NYC? Would you want the same laws applied to him? Or would you want to able to force someone like this to de-crypt their files in order to stop an attack?
I really don't know what the right answer is, but sometimes laws intended to keep us safe, also give shelter to bad guys.
Americans inherently know this. We were brought up with the idea that freedom isn't free and that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Just because it is more convenient to violate the civil liberties of all to catch a few bad actors doesn't mean it is what our country is all about.
Europeans often find that sentiment ridiculous. But that is just the cost of privacy and liberty - one that our forefathers were welcome to pay.
Taking advantage of Norway's laws is fine, until the day that those laws go sour on you.