I remember this being discussed somewhere on HN or Metafilter before. There was this bit where someone was explaining how surveillance efforts are extremely bur

I remember this being discussed somewhere on HN or Metafilter before. There was this bit where someone was explaining how surveillance efforts are extremely bureaucratized and disjointed across countless departments and entities. So, depending on the objective, it can be much more difficult to get something from someone else in a different government organization through official channels than it would be to just spend money on buying the info through the private sector. And this makes sense when you think about it. Like yeah, the NSA has everything locked away somewhere but the limitations on giving access to that are probably very serious. When you’re a smaller guy in some other government or corporate organization and you’re on a fishing expedition for some lower level routine investigation, you’re probably not going to be asking your boss or higher ups for the most expensive solution to your problem. And yeah - the stock photo is just lazy.