Why is the NSA grabbing all your private data? by Daniel Lemire.
From the post:
Snowden revealed to the world that the NSA was systematically spying on all of us. Maybe more critically, we have learned that the NSA is spying on all American citizens. In fact, the NSA is even spying on its own congress. This spying violates the US constitution.
We also know that such spying is ineffective when it comes to stopping terrorists. A cost-benefit analysis shows that the NSA is wasteful.
So why are they doing it?
They are doing it precisely because it is very expensive.
….
To expand Daniel’s point a bit, the war on terrorism isn’t about national security any more than the war on drugs was about reducing drug use.
Both were excuses to spend large amounts of government money with no measurable goals or metrics for success or failure.
Remember the old saying: If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Spending the funds in secret budget allocations serves to further conceal its lack of value.
But it also points towards a solution to the surveillance/privacy issue.
Congress should pass secret budgets for scientific, medical and humanities research projects that dwarf the war on terror budgets.
Contractors pushing the surveillance agenda will switch over to the larger budgets. Still no measurable results but the projects won’t involve invasion of the privacy of people world wide.
With larger budgets in sight, the supporters of surveillance will move to greener pastures.