What about the Dutch government, and the Swedish government, U.K. government, and Canada, etc.? The EU itself has a data retention law that Germany doesn't follow, but don't the rest of the EU member nations participate?

FWIW I do feel that American citizens should have to 'participate' just as much in these schemes as the rest of the world, if these schemes are to exist at all.

I suppose what I can't figure out is why the reaction is devoted solely at the U.S., when it seems Germany is the only major Western society that cares that deeply about it.