It's a move in a large game of chess. Just because your opponent will counter your movement, doesn't mean you shouldn't make a move. This is a viable strategy.

It's a move in a large game of chess. Just because your opponent will counter your movement, doesn't mean you shouldn't make a move. This is a viable strategy. The earlier it is, the more likely you have resources to counter a movement. This is an option now and with sound strategy could be used in various scenarios. The NSA is successful now because of computational power and obscurity. They operate in the dark and as a result get away with a lot. But operational funds that feed their workers that work for them on all levels come from the people. Bureaucracy is acting as levels of abstraction preventing the people from shutting them down by denial of resources. The further you are able to cut down the bureaucracy and make it apparent that the NSA needs money from the people to operate, the more likely you are to engage the american people into saying 'no'. So, should they need to spend money on energy, they will have to find a means to get it, and the more you block them, the higher the price gets. At some point, if the campaign is successful, they will have to appeal to the people for money, i.e. some tax to do it. Maybe it will be defense spending, or maybe it will be energy tax. But the clearer it becomes an issue of money, the more obvious what the move is, and can thus be countered into a game finishing move.