Funded by tax dollars, but without your knowledge: What the government pays industry to snoop

[Luminous Animal]

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/214866551.html

WASHINGTON — How much are your private conversations worth to the government? Turns out, it can be a lot, depending on the technology.

In the era of intense government surveillance and secret court orders, a murky multimillion-dollar market has emerged. Paid for by U.S. tax dollars, but with little public scrutiny, surveillance fees charged in secret by technology and phone companies can vary wildly.

AT&T, for example, imposes a $325 "activation fee" for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it. Smaller carriers Cricket and U.S. Cellular charge only about $250 per wiretap. But snoop on a Verizon customer? That costs the government $775 for the first month and $500 each month after that, according to industry disclosures made last year to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

Meanwhile, email records like those amassed by the National Security Agency through a program revealed by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden probably were collected for free or very cheaply. Facebook says it doesn't charge the government for access. And while Microsoft, Yahoo and Google won't say how much they charge, the American Civil Liberties Union found that email records can be turned over for as little as $25.

[indepat]

1. Enriching corporate coffers ostensibly to keep us safe although invading our privacy in the absence

of probable cause and thereby shredding our hallowed freedoms. At least the big corporations are getting an egregious windfall with those fees which are probably non-negotiable or set intentionally high to reap the egregious windfalls. Would bet the gross profit margin on these "activation fees" is in the high 90-percent range which are paid for by cuts in the safety net. Now ain't this some kind of a great country or what?