As a demonstration of the butterfly effect of chaos theory, changes made to U.S. law after the 9/11 terror attacks are now being raised as blockages on the competitiveness of U.S.-based outsourcing and IT services companies when competing for business in Europe and Asia.

The USA PATRIOT Act contains provisions allowing the U.S. government access to business records for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations. The extraterritorial effect of the USA PATRIOT Act means that confidential data of non-U.S. outsourcing customers is potentially open to disclosure to the U.S. authorities via any U.S.-based service provider (or its non-U.S.-based affiliate) handling that data.