They do. A friend of mine was doing tech stuff (an encryption related startup) there a few years ago. A lot of people in the government, who tend to be quite approachable, do honestly seem to care about this stuff.

Tech is one of the industries they're trying to get involved in.

Yes, but it's still ultimately under direct control of UK forces. If GCHQ wanted to tap your cables, they would do so in the same way as in Britain.

Of course they can - if you're talking about tapping submarine cables or other attacks from the "outside".

I was asking more about the legal situation, whether they have enough independence to enact laws to prevent the authorities making "inside" attacks such as:

* Forcing operators to identify customers

* Forbid the operator from telling their customers about anything

* Take hardware without allowing it to be destroyed beforehand

These things could still happen illegally of course.

Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that wasn't possible.

Jersey is under UK military control, it even has a formal Territorial Army regiment, so it's certainly possible in factual terms.

In legal terms I honestly don't know, but after Snowden I thought we agreed that the law is no obstacle for these people.