A abide by respecter After Edward Snowden exposed certain American intelligence practices in 2013, senior US politicians asserted that citizens who abide by the law have nothing to fear from "big data" approaches to surveillance by intelligence agencies such as the NSA*. * National Security Agency about-face volte-face syn. turnabout, flip-flop The sudden American about-face on Syria when Assad used chemical weapons in August 2013 and Obama failed to enforce his "red line" took some European countries by surprise. academic universitaire, enseignant-chercheur On the issue of World Bank funding of water privatisation since the early 1990s, academics cite cities in Romania, Colombia, Morocco and Senegal as successes while opponents say it has failed in Bolivia, Tanzania and parts of Europe. 1