The thing is that the grassroots organizers in other countries who care most about government spying tend to live in countries with much more meddling than that which the US government has demonstrated through PRISM. So compared to a locally-run service, keeping data in the US cloud is likely still much safer. I don't see Google handing over an activist's email logs to the Turkish government, whereas an email service based in Turkey could be strongarmed into it.
A legitimate, non-rhetorical question: does an activist in Turkey care whether the US government reads his/her emails, as long as they don't share them with Turkey?
The thing is that the grassroots organizers in other countries who care most about government spying tend to live in countries with much more meddling than that which the US government has demonstrated through PRISM. So compared to a locally-run service, keeping data in the US cloud is likely still much safer. I don't see Google handing over an activist's email logs to the Turkish government, whereas an email service based in Turkey could be strongarmed into it.
A legitimate, non-rhetorical question: does an activist in Turkey care whether the US government reads his/her emails, as long as they don't share them with Turkey?