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How much money are we talking about? Which country? Just because you can't quantify the cost of privacy loss doesn't mean we shouldn't spend money on surveilla

How much money are we talking about? Which country? Just because you can't quantify the cost of privacy loss doesn't mean we shouldn't spend money on surveillance.

bediger4000 11y ago
Well, we know from the Snowden disclosures that the NSA gets about $50 BILLION a year (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-leaked-by-edward-snowden-describes-nsa-team-that-hacks-foreign-targets/2013/08/30/8b7e684c-119b-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black...). Neither CIA/NRO nor FBI are included in that, I think, and we know that both run extensive/expensive surveillance. So, the USA may spend around $100 BILLION a year on various surveillance activities. Spy satellites are pretty expensive to develop, launch and operate. It's also pretty clear that some of the surveillance is turned inward, against US citizens inside the USA's boundaries. That would be the FBI part of the surveillance picture. Given that US citizens are supposed to be presumed innocent, and protected from unreasonable search and seizure, we have a binary decision to make, and I don't see how anyone can say that dragnet surveillance of all/nearly all US citizens lies within Constitutional limits. At the very least, we should change the rules, and make performances of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" some kind of mild federal crime. You know, just to be honest and consistent. On a sociological level, we know that being under surveillance all the time causes some psychological effects (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412564 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412564, but it's easy to find lots of serious stuff about those effects). Do we, the citizens of the USA, want those effects? If we all go about censoring ourselves, how does that affect the technological and social innovation that we depend on to keep our civilization running? Keep in mind the fate of the Spanish Empire after the Inquisition, and China's "one eye open, one eye shut" enforcement. Let's also keep in mind that surveillance will be used against politicians and potential politicians, and leaders at all scales. Do the citizens of the USA want that? Do we want the market distortions that secret knowledge gives some people (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2008/10/they_made_a_killing.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/20...)? We haven't discussed any of this openly. Hardly any of it has an easy cost to calculate, but it's probably not worth $100 BILLION a year.

How much money are we talking about? Which country? Just because you can't quantify the cost of privacy loss doesn't mean we shouldn't spend money on surveillance.

bediger4000 11y ago

Well, we know from the Snowden disclosures that the NSA gets about $50 BILLION a year (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-leaked-by-edward-snowden-describes-nsa-team-that-hacks-foreign-targets/2013/08/30/8b7e684c-119b-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black...). Neither CIA/NRO nor FBI are included in that, I think, and we know that both run extensive/expensive surveillance. So, the USA may spend around $100 BILLION a year on various surveillance activities. Spy satellites are pretty expensive to develop, launch and operate. It's also pretty clear that some of the surveillance is turned inward, against US citizens inside the USA's boundaries. That would be the FBI part of the surveillance picture. Given that US citizens are supposed to be presumed innocent, and protected from unreasonable search and seizure, we have a binary decision to make, and I don't see how anyone can say that dragnet surveillance of all/nearly all US citizens lies within Constitutional limits. At the very least, we should change the rules, and make performances of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" some kind of mild federal crime. You know, just to be honest and consistent. On a sociological level, we know that being under surveillance all the time causes some psychological effects (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412564 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412564, but it's easy to find lots of serious stuff about those effects). Do we, the citizens of the USA, want those effects? If we all go about censoring ourselves, how does that affect the technological and social innovation that we depend on to keep our civilization running? Keep in mind the fate of the Spanish Empire after the Inquisition, and China's "one eye open, one eye shut" enforcement. Let's also keep in mind that surveillance will be used against politicians and potential politicians, and leaders at all scales. Do the citizens of the USA want that? Do we want the market distortions that secret knowledge gives some people (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2008/10/they_made_a_killing.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/20...)? We haven't discussed any of this openly. Hardly any of it has an easy cost to calculate, but it's probably not worth $100 BILLION a year.