> The NSA will not stop gathering data on EU citizens
This is precisely the reason for the ruling. US policy will not guarantee that NSA won't snoop on EU citizens, therefore "safe harbour" is null. You're either respecting the other jurisdictions or you're not.
The issue here is not that the "law failed to do what it promised" it's that the "law was not implemented as promised". It can still fail even with the right implementation but at least now such practices facilitating such failures are now understood by everybody to be illegal. It is not "Okay" any more.
As you probably know, you can't comment like this on HN and we ban accounts that do it repeatedly. Please post civilly and substantively or not at all.