Yes, it was my impression that some companies participate voluntarily (other than by court order), because the government pays for access or otherwise awards th

Yes, it was my impression that some companies participate voluntarily (other than by court order), because the government pays for access or otherwise awards them contracts for access. One discussion: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/10/what-government-pays-to-snoop-on-you/2504819/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/10/what... It's easy to understand why the typical company would choose to participate if they simply need to provide a data stream to gain a new revenue stream. It's also easy to understand why a factory will dump pollutants into a river instead of disposing them "properly". It's our job as a society to create incentives and remove options that provide this sort of "tragedy of the digital privacy commons" (not a perfect analogy). By paying for access (at presumably a rate much greater than cost), the government makes firms who refuse to provide access less competitive in the market than firms who do.