Freud might say something about the unconscious need for punishment and a monk might say , impermanence therefore suffering . <| sep |> The five member countries of the UKUSA Agreement UK , USA , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand . This is an agreement dating back to 1941 WWII for sharing of intelligence relating to intercepted communications between the member countries . During the Cold War they began operating the program , initially to monitor communications within and around the Soviet Union . This later expanded to interception of all global communications , including personal and commercial data . The Snowden revelations 2013 % E 2 % 80 % 93 present revealed the extent to which the network and programs it operates have now grown in scale and scope . Aspects of this arrangement have since widened to include the 14 Eyes , and it ' s just going to keep getting worse , but nonetheless for now it ' s a sensible precaution when choosing a VPN to at least keep out of the Five Eyes countries . Separately , the US is particularly bad due to their use of National Security Letters , which require any tech companies based in the US to provide access to your data when requested and ban them from telling you about it . As long as you choose a VPN but doesn ' t log any data in the first place this hopefully isn ' t too much of an issue , but nonetheless it ' s sensible to choose a provider outside the States .