Yes, Of Course The NSA Pays Tech Companies For Surveillance Efforts

from the taxpayer-money dept

The latest Ed Snowden leak from the Guardian shows that after the FISA court had ruled that aspects of the NSA's data collection program were unconstitutional, the NSA had to work with tech companies to change their technology to avoid capturing some of the information they weren't allowed to capture, and, as a result the NSA paid millions to those tech companies via its Special Source Operations. To be honest, this doesn't seem like a huge bombshell in terms of revelations. It's long been known that the government pays companies for law enforcement assistance/surveillance (e.g. wiretaps) -- and as long as that surveillance is legal, that makes sense and is reasonable. The fact that this cost millions of dollars, however, suggests that it's a pretty big program.

Either way, while many of the Snowden leaks have been a pretty big deal, this one seems like nothing new. It's never been a secret that tech companies were required to reveal certain information under court orders, or that the government pays the companies for the cost. The only thing here is that the companies had to change their systems to make sure that the NSA's collection effort was "in line" with what the FISA Court deemed to be Constitutional. If anything, that makes a lot of sense, as we should want the government to have to cover the costs of making sure that their surveillance efforts are Constitutional. Many of the leaks so far have been a big deal, but this one doesn't seem all that interesting.
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Filed Under: fees, nsa, nsa surveillance, prism, surveillance
Companies: google, yahoo


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  • icon
    blaktron (profile), 23 Aug 2013 @ 8:26am

    Leak?

    Was this a leak? The guardian article suggested it came from the declassified judgement. And honestly, i think maybe the companies should have to pay for this crap themselves, we've basically turned handing us over to the feds a billable project...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2013 @ 8:53am

      Re: Leak?

      Great idea. Nothing will deter gov't surveillance like the prospect of NOT PAYING A DIME for it.

      We're all better off that the feds are paying. They ought to pay top dollar. If they were getting it for free they'd be even worse than they are now. At least now, every time the spooks ask for a data dump, they need to justify that cost to some bureaucrat upstairs.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        blaktron (profile), 23 Aug 2013 @ 9:04am

        Re: Re: Leak?

        You know its not the guys doing the surveillance paying for it, right? Its you.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2013 @ 9:56am

          Re: Re: Re: Leak?

          bingo

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2013 @ 6:15am

          Re: Re: Re: Leak?

          The point being made was they at least would have to get money appropriated which is beyter than just getting it for free. The fact that it's tax money being appropriated is as obvious as it is incidental to the argument.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2013 @ 9:10am

        Re: Re: Leak?

        The government won't be deterred, but the companies will definitely be more inclined to push back if they're not getting a crate full of money for it.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2013 @ 6:19am

          Re: Re: Re: Leak?

          Except they also get a ton more work to do that doesn't advance their actual business. The money doesn't make them better off it makes them even again.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Zakida Paul (profile), 23 Aug 2013 @ 8:28am

    Be honest

    Who didn't see this coming?

    I asked the question very early in the story how much this was costing the US taxpayers.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2013 @ 8:40am

    Here's a question for accountants and attorneys

    Suppose that public company XYZ was paid $5M by the NSA for their efforts. Is XYZ required to report that income, its source, its amount, etc. in their public filings? If so, under what circumstances? If not, why not?

    (I have approximately zero understanding of IRS and SEC requirements, which is why I'm asking for someone who actually has a clue to weigh in on this.)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2013 @ 8:47am

      Re: Here's a question for accountants and attorneys

      You can go to the SEC database, EDGAR, and look up the Form 10-K for any of these companies for yourself, but I don't think I've ever seen a company break out revenues by *customer.* This probably just gets lumped in with "gross revenues."

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2013 @ 8:59am

      Re: Here's a question for accountants and attorneys

      The report it under "proceeds of crime" I guess.

      William Hague, the traitor who signed off on GCHQ spying on British data for the NSA. His claimed legal word-game is to pretend that the USA spying order represents "lawful authority" in the UK and this permits him to authorize spying on Brits via the targetted surveillance order of RIPA.

      If the USA order isn't lawful authority, then the UK one isn't either. He signed off on an unlawful order.

      That's not even counting the fact that the only order, Parliament authorized him to make was a *targeted* surveillance order, not a *mass* data collection of everyone's data.

      A mass collection of everyone data and a promise not to misuse it, is not equivalent to a targetted surveillance order. Not in the USA, not in the UK.

      IMHO, William Hague's a traitor that exposed us Brits to surveillance by a foreign power, violating our fundamental right to privacy. How can we argue politics when everything we say is watched by foreign spooks? How can we campaign under surveillance? Why did he betray our privacy? Will they spy on us to protect his position in politics? If I go out campaigning at the next election for his ejection, can I expect the NSA to prepare secret briefing notes on my campaign? How is what he did not a shameful betrayal of his country?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2013 @ 8:45am

    Not paying companies when requiring them to provide service to the government would probably be an unconstitutional "Taking." The government has been paying the telecom companies market rate (whatever that is) for wiretaps for years; this is the basically the same.

    The problem with it happening is that after a while, companies can start to think of it as an expected revenue stream, and then they get in bed with the spymasters. AT&T is probably in that category.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2013 @ 6:12am

      Re:

      What's with the quotes? It would be as literal a talking as ever one was.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    kfreed (profile), 23 Aug 2013 @ 9:03am

    Greenwald's misreporting/ Wikileaks alterego

    I've been saying that the NSA "scandal" (involving Libertarian Glenn Greenwald of Cato Institute and Paulbot Snowden) is another RW fake scandal. It's not about privacy. It's about undermining government, specifically the democrat in the White House, for political purposes.

    "Assange's Emerging Politics: Rand Paul And Libertarian Wing of GOP Represent 'Only Hope'"

    Forbes (Page 2): UPDATE: Wikileaks Party under fire in Australia for what some are describing its “lurch to the right,” revealing in filings that “they want the fascist Australia First Party, the pro-shooting-in-National-Parks Shooters and Fishers Party , and the “mens rights activist” Non-Custodial Parents Party to win a seat instead of the Australian Greens. Maybe this really is an international conservative movement."

    NOTE THIS: "What’s fascinating is that Paul (the father, less so the son, who still has aspirations to actual head up the vast government he says he despises) largely rejects a modern view of democracy, claiming that “pure democracy is dangerous” and that the founders never intended actual democratic rule. “Democracy is majority rule at the expense of the minority,” wrote Paul last year. “Our system has certain democratic elements, but the founders never mentioned democracy in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of
    Independence.”

    READ IN FULL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2013/08/17/assanges-politics-rand-paul-and-libertarian-wing-of -gop-represent-only-hope-in-u-s/

    Finally, somebody had the balls to say it.

    Here's the Assange for Ron/Rand Paul video:
    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42405_Wikileaks_Founder_Assange-_Im_a_Big_Admirer_of_Ron_P aul_and_Rand_Paul#rss

    Really, people? THIS is what we want to be supporting??????????????

    Tea partying Rand Paul's premature 2016 ad sounds suspiciously like Glenn Greenwald, don't it?
    http://www.dailypaul.com/285884/rand-paul-beyond-the-left-right-paradigm

    Glenn Greenwald is not a liberal, he's a RW Libertarian associated with the brothers Koch and their Cato think tank: http://exiledonline.com/glenn-greenwald-of-the-libertarian-cato-institute-posts-his-defense-of-joshu a-foust-the-exiled-responds-to-greenwald/

    THIS Cato think tank:

    The Nation: "John Yoo, author of the notorious “torture memo,” served on the Cato editorial board for Cato Supreme Court Review during the Bush presidency. At the same time, Yoo was writing the Bush administration’s legal justifications for waterboarding, Guantánamo, warrantless wiretapping and more. Yoo also contributed articles to Cato Supreme Court Review and a chapter to a Cato book titled The Rule of Law in the Wake of Clinton criticizing President Clinton’s “imperial presidency.”

    The “Cato Policy Report” attacked progressive critics of Bush’s “War on Terror” as “Terrorism’s Fellow Travelers“ in its November/December 2001 issue. Former Vice President of Research Brink Lindsey wrote, “Most of the America haters flushed out by September 11 are huddled on the left wing of the conventional political spectrum.”

    Another Cato executive, Ted Galen Carpenter, former VP for defense and foreign policy studies, enthusiastically supported Bush’s “war on terror” and called on Bush to invade Pakistan.

    The Cato Institute advised the 2002–04 Republican-dominated Congress to commence military strikes in Pakistan in its Cato Handbook for Congress arguing, “Ultimately, Afghanistan becomes less important as a place to conduct military operations in the war on terrorism and more important as a place from which to launch military operations. And those operations should be directed across the border into neighboring Pakistan.”

    Another Cato Institute executive, Roger Pilon, vigorously supported Bush’s attacks on civil liberties. Pilon, Cato’s VP for legal affairs and founding director of the Cato Institute’s “Center for Constitutional Studies,” supported expanded FBI wiretapping in 2002 and called on Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act as late as 2008.
    http://www.thenation.com/article/167500/independent-and-principled-behind-cato-myth#

    Greenwald's only purpose in life is getting Tea party lunatics elected:

    "At a talk given the day after the 2010 election — one that was a disaster for Democrats — “progressive” writer and civil liberties lawyer Glenn Greenwald gave a talk at the University of Wisconsin, and expressed the hope that Democrats might suffer the same fate in 2012.

    Greenwald’s speech mainly focused on civil liberties and terrorism policy “in the age of Obama.” But it was his approach to politics that got members of the Young Americans for Liberty — a Paulite Libertarian group that co-sponsored the event — excited:

    Paulites: "The speech was stellar with too many good points to touch on in a single blog post. I would like to point out that in the Q&A at 38:00 Greenwald specifically addresses a possible alliance between progressives and Ron Paul libertarians."
    http://blog.reidreport.com/2011/04/re-rise-of-the-naderites-glenn-greenwalds-third-p arty-dreamin/

    P.S. Some of us are keeping up with Greenwald's lying - blow by blow:
    http://thedailybanter.com/tag/glenn-greenwald/

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Ninja (profile), 23 Aug 2013 @ 10:47am

      Re: Greenwald's misreporting/ Wikileaks alterego

      involving Libertarian Glenn Greenwald of Cato Institute and Paulbot Snowden

      Mind if I laugh hard at you? Using labels devoid of meaning is the first thing that helps you identify those who swallow the kool-aid in a single gulp. The rest of your post just confirms it. Are you still scared of the Communist bogeyman?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      FM HIlton, 23 Aug 2013 @ 11:45am

      Re: Greenwald's misreporting/ Wikileaks alterego

      Are you related to Out of the Blue?

      Really-you must meet each other, if you're not.

      Two peas in pod, seeing 'conspiracies' everywhere!

      I call it the "League of the Tin Foil Hats".

      I presume you're the Vice President of the group, and a founding member.

      It's bad enough with the real stuff. Stop making up the garbage.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Nicholas Weaver (profile), 23 Aug 2013 @ 9:04am

    Except for that whole "reputational damage" thing...

    Having the companies modify their infrastructure for the benefit of the NSA means although it may be "legal" to tap foreign communications, it means that the US companies are now complicit in attacking their own customers (just not the US customers).

    The reputational and economic damage that the NSA is causing dwarfs the few million dollars the companies are gaining. US/UK technology companies now must be considered to be hostile if you are outside of the US/UK.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2013 @ 9:10am

    what this definitely shows is, even when they have a choice,ie, not forced by court orders or threats of prosecution, the telco/tech companies, in general, will sell their customers off to the NSA and probably all the other security agencies as well. we've seen the disgraceful performance from politicians when 'encouraged' to go a particular route by the entertainment industries and Hollywood, so it's no surprise really that money is everything and people are nothing, until the votes are wanted that is!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Alt0, 23 Aug 2013 @ 9:38am

    But did they actually accomplish it?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Alt0, 23 Aug 2013 @ 9:41am

    But did they actually accomplish it?

    I am OK with the court finding something is a "bit" over the line and saying "fix it"

    I'm OK with it costing US money to do so and keep the Constitution intact.

    What bothers me is US paying money to "fix it" that does not "fix it".

    After the millions does the program NOW fall under "constitutional"?

    Right didn't think it would.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous, 23 Aug 2013 @ 6:48pm

    Government, big business, capitalism, communism...all part of the same machine.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    LG, 23 Aug 2013 @ 11:51pm

    Let's get real, guys; ulitmatelty the community always pays for everything!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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