[surprised look goes here]
I guess if itās my emails theyāre reading, itās only fair I pay for it.
Wait, Iām not a US citizen . Ha! Bonus! I get my emails read by the NSA and donāt have to stump up the bucks!
You foreign socialists make me sick! Just a bunch of free-riders on Americaās Global Benevolence.
You know guys, all of these withering barbs against the NSA are going down in your āSarcasm to be interpreted literallyā files.
Buddy if Prism has been going on as long as the slides say it has then Iām already damned if they want to cook up a reason to haul me in.
So stop yer bellyaching the NSA came up with the most all encompassing least intrusive social network EVER. No buttons to click and they even do the signup for you. ALL SHARING ALL THE TIME!
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Would you prefer that the government place an unpaid mandate on the companies? They had to do work to make this happen, they got paid to do that work. Sounds like a government contract to me.
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āMillionsā, when youāre talking about government, is chump change.
Come on, folks. Are you really that desperate to find something new to say about the NSA?" Letās see just a bit of perspective here!
Duly noted.
But then, isnāt everything?
Considering Iām not very empathetic to corporations, I actually can see really great reasons from a not-a-company perspective why it would have been great if the companies had to pay. Not because I think companies should have to foot the bill for complying with something massively immoral and not because the U.S. is that strapped for cash (because Iāll happily agree with you that itās chump change).
If the companies had been required to pay, there is about 0% chance we would have had to wait for Snowden to leak in order for us to find out about it. Given all those companies involved, I bet at least one CEO would have stood up and said āNope, not gonnaā very loudly and said what they wouldnāt do and why with a strong streak of faux principles. Even if it meant that some CEO went to minimum security prison for a long long time.
Those payouts really amount to hush money.
All that said, Iām not surprised they got something and given the large scale, Iām not surprised it was cash. If it was just one or two companies, we might have seen some more elaborate, less accounting-friendly scheme.
Iām not incensed exactly but itās always a bit galling to pay for the rope used to hang you. Even if itās a pittance.
Crime pays.
Caps, then?
I bet good money that āNope, not gonnaā is exactly what happened, itās just they said it to the NSA instead of saying it publicly, and then the NSA gave them the money.
Hmmm, perhaps a new way to fund projectsā¦ Instead of ad revenue, have users agree to explicitly share everything with the NSA in return for NSA$.
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