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Ignoring the privacy concerns, we spend an awful lot of money on the NSA. Tens of billions for sure. Maybe if they'd been thwarting a 9/11 every week (or if w
by joshuapants 13y ago
Ignoring the privacy concerns, we spend an awful lot of money on the NSA. Tens of billions for sure. Maybe if they'd been thwarting a 9/11 every week (or if we were at risk for a 9/11-scale event semi-frequently) I'd feel that we hadn't quite wasted that money.
- f_salmon 13y agoYou say "billions". But if you know this [0], then you start asking yourself if all that money can really be just "lost". [0] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/11/8-5-trillion-taxpayer-money-doled-congress-pentagon-since-1996-never-accounted.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/11/8-5-trillion-taxpayer...
- EliRivers 13y agoThe money isn't "lost"; what's gone forever are millions upon millions upon millions of man-hours that could have been used to do something useful. Saying the money is lost is just a handy shorthand for expressing what a waste it all was.