What the Government Pays To Snoop On You

transporter_ii writes "So what does it cost the government to snoop on us? Paid for by U.S. tax dollars, and with little scrutiny, surveillance fees charged by phone companies can vary wildly. For example, AT&T, 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 Congressman Edward Markey."

Comments

certainly restoring the fourth amendment

[Presto Vivace]

could save us a lot of money, in addition to saving our constitution.

Re:certainly restoring the fourth amendment

[Agares]

Stop with the common sense there is no place for that in our government!!!

AT&T Introduces Privacy+ Tier

[transporter_ii]

It's funny. I wrote this in 2006 and originally posted it to Slashdot. Turns out, it was a fairly prophetic piece. It got posted to Slashnot, google finance picked it up, and listed it as a blog post under AT&T's stock!

-=-=-=-=

AT&T Introduces Privacy+ Tier for Consumers and an NSA Turbo-Speed Tier for the government, at Market-Leading Prices

Wednesday April 26, 6:00 am ET

For $24.95 a month extra, the new Privacy+ Tier offers consumers the ability to feed all data to the NSA at the slowest speeds available. However, for an extra $28.95 per month, per customer, the NSA can override the Privacy+ Tier and spy on Americans at Speeds of up to 6.0 Megabits per Second

SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2006--AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T - News) today announced a new, higher-privacy tier for its AT&T Yahoo!® High Speed Internet service that meets consumers' growing outrage for allowing the NSA full availability to its backbone. At the same time, it announced a new NSA Turbo-Speed Tier that, for a fee, allows the government to override the newly introduced Privacy+ Tier.

Beginning Monday, May 1, new residential customers who order AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet service online through www.att.com can purchase the Privacy+ Tier -- offering data to the NSA at speeds sometimes as slow as 56k. (other monthly charges and a 12-month term commitment apply). Effective today, the new Privacy+ Tier is available for $24.99, when it is ordered with a qualifying service bundle. Existing AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet customers can upgrade to the Privacy+ service through the company's Web site and take advantage of the current pricing promotion beginning Monday.

"Consumers are craving greater privacy, and now with the AT&T Privacy+ service, they can at least get the satisfaction that the government is going to get their private data at the slowest speeds possible; "Consumers could easily get more privacy from a company that doesn't offer the NSA a fat pipe right onto its backbone, but with the incredible amount of money that the government paid us for that pipe, we just couldn't pass it up. The new Privacy+ Tier, tips the scales back just a little bit in favor of the consumer," said Scott Helbing, chief marketing officer-AT&T Consumer.

Also effective Monday, May 1, the NSA can sign up for the new NSA Turbo-Speed Tier, which for an extra $28.95 per month, per customer, allows the government to override the newly created Privacy+ Tier. "The NSA is craving greater speed to American's private communications, and now with the NSA Turbo-Speed Tier, they can at least get the satisfaction that they can resume domestic spying at the highest speeds possible; "The NSA will be hard-pressed to find this speed at a better price, for a full 12 months, from one of our leading competitors," said Scott Helbing, chief marketing officer-AT&T Consumer.

AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet also announced that with the NSA paying an undisclosed, but very large amount of money for access to its backbone data, and with a higher than expected demand from consumers, that it has decided to ask popular web sites, such as Google and eBay to also pay a monthly fee to insure a speedy deliver of all consumer data to these web sites. In that regard, AT&T Yahoo introduced the new Extortion-racket Tier.

Also, in a move that is sure to stun Wall Street, AT&T has announced that they will soon enter the "garbage collection" business.

About the New AT&T

AT&T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecommunications holding companies and is the largest in the United States. Operating globally under the AT&T brand, AT&T companies are recognized as the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communications services to business and as leading U.S. providers of high-speed DSL Internet, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. AT&T Inc. holds a 60 percent ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which is the No. 1

Re:AT&T Introduces Privacy+ Tier

[guttentag]

For $24.95 a month extra, the new Privacy+ Tier offers consumers the ability to feed all data to the NSA at the slowest speeds available. However, for an extra $28.95 per month, per customer, the NSA can override the Privacy+ Tier and spy on Americans at Speeds of up to 6.0 Megabits per Second

You can't stop them from giving the NSA your data, but for an extra $29.99 a month you can have AT&T re-class your data as Privacy+ tier which costs the NSA an extra $599.99 in monthly surcharges to obtain. For the extra-privacy-conscious, you can name your price ($50 or greater) for PrivacyUnlimited and whatever you spend per month will cost the NSA 30 times as much to obtain.

AT&T: We're Listening

Re:AT&T Introduces Privacy+ Tier

[Valdrax]

Brilliant satire of Caller ID.

It costs the government NOTHING.

[jcr]

The government isn't a producer of wealth. Every penny it spends is taken from us.

-jcr

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

With that logic every penny we all spend is taken from our employers? No one/entity is a producer of wealth with your logic. The government does things for us, their employers, that would warrant us paying for. Now, the difference is that we don't have as much say as OUR employers do in how much the government makes off us.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Jason Levine]

In other words, it costs us twice. First, to get cell phone service (acceptable though whether the amount is fair is arguable) and second to send our data to the NSA without our approval (definitely NOT acceptable). And the phone companies get paid twice by us (well, once by the government using our tax money). So they aren't likely to argue too strenuously against this unless the potential for bad PR is too high. (In other words, they'll work doubly hard to keep the whole thing secret.)

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Lendrick]

You might want to get a new introductory economics book. Yours sounds like it was written to promote a political view rather than actually, ya know, teach economics.

The government is just as capable of producing wealth as any other entity. If the government spends money on a program that adds more value to the economy than the cost of the program (such as food assistance, which has close to a 2:1 return), then the government has produced wealth. Whether the entity is public or private doesn't figure into it at all.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Khyber]

That isn't ignorance.

It's raw economics.

The fact that the fool doesn't understand doesn't make his point any less true than it already is.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Rockoon]

With that logic every penny we all spend is taken from our employers?

To answer your question... with that logic, no.

Perhaps you don't understand that logic?

The fact of the matter is that you, in collusion with your employer, create wealth.

Spending is not wealth creation. Adding value is wealth creation.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Livius]

There's a difference between ignorance and a self-evident truth that you happen not to like.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[norpy]

You happen to be wrong because you are forgetting the multiplier effect. Every dollar the government spends is spent repeatedly before it ends up stopped in a savings account or cash horde somewhere. This is why income/wealth is taxed in the first place, to force it back into circulation.
Taking money and then just spending it immediately IS wealth generating, it is the driver of inflation and all that stuff.

Savings and interest payments have the opposite effect, money that is hoarded is a drag on the economy and does not create wealth.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzzt! You lose. For your "theory", lets say the government buys a $1000 widget. It didn't produce that widget, it spent the money to buy that widget. It didn't spend $1000 for that widget, it spent $1200 because the government has its overhead. The best part is it took that $1200 from wealth producers and it cost the government an additional $100 to run the IRS for that. On top of that it will probably spend $400 in interest on loans for that original amount.

So, by your example, being generous the government created $1000 in wealth at a cost to the economy of $1700. So for every widget the government "produces" the economy loses $700. Its great if you are the one selling the widget, but the economy overall is a loser.

Thats how it works. No amount of spin or web of lies changes it.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[khallow]

The government is just as capable of producing wealth as any other entity.

Capable != actually doing it. The private world has the profit motive for keeping it productive. The activity has to generate some sort of value to the actor beyond its cost or it isn't generating a profit.

If the government spends money on a program that adds more value to the economy than the cost of the program (such as food assistance, which has close to a 2:1 return), then the government has produced wealth.

Where is this study that claims a 2:1 return? I decided to google for this and came across this study. The money quote:

SNAP brings Federal dollars into communities in the form of benefits which are redeemed by SNAP participants at local stores. These benefits ripple throughout the economies of the community, State, and Nation. For example:

* Every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates $9.00 in total community spending.
* Every additional dollarâ(TM)s worth of SNAP benefits generates 17 to 47 cents of new spending on food.
* On average, $1 billion of retail food demand by SNAP recipients generates close to 3,000 farm jobs.

Note that $5 in spending produces $9 in spending not wealth. So right there we don't have a 2:1 return. As I see it, we take $5 of someone's money and use it to generate far less than $5 of value - feeding someone who can feed themselves. That's negative return on investment right there.

It's a destructive economic gimmick to conflate spending or economic activity with wealth creation. They aren't equivalent or even correlated. For example, a disaster creates a lot of spending and economic activity (from reconstruction efforts), but it results in a net loss of wealth.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[khallow]

And I might add the "money quote" also uses the infamous "jobs created or saved" metric. 3,000 jobs created for only a billion dollars spent? They should be embarrassed for even dropping that line in there.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

nope --your simple example is simply wrong and ignores many hidden costs. no amount of ignorance on your part changes it.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government produces infrastructure (usually), which gives the greatest wealth returns of all.

Your argument is invalid.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[khallow]

Economic activity != wealth creation.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is actually a (re)distributor of wealth. That is the classic role of all governments/authority figures.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Alomex]

Actually many of the activities of the government are wealth producing, including science, education and infrastructure.

The funny thing is that obviously false FoxNews talking point gets modded +5 Insightful because it appeals to people to be told that money was unjustly taken from them.

p.s. By the way people out there reading this with mod points, you are all extremely handsome and you pay too much taxes, and you deserve a raise.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government isn't a producer of wealth. Every penny it spends is taken from us.

-jcr

This is funny because every year the government increases the monetary supply - it literally makes pennies and dollars, pennies and dollars that didn't exist before.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

With that logic every penny we all spend is taken from our employers? No one/entity is a producer of wealth with your logic. The government does things for us, their employers, that would warrant us paying for. Now, the difference is that we don't have as much say as OUR employers do in how much the government makes off us.

You're an idiot!!!

Wealth is created by taking something of little value and making it have value.... For example, sand is pretty common and not very valuable on the other hand, the windshield of your mother's car is quite expensive. They are both made of the same material but one is more valuable. It gained value because someone spent their time and used their skill to make it valuable. When the Govt taxes, there is less money to hire such individuals so less product and less wealth... Also, when the Govt takes the money there is less money to purchase that valuable product. When those two negatives are taken to the extreme as is the current tax situation, the economy as a whole crashes...

Now you know why the economy sucks... The Govt is too big... The Govt only destroys wealth... and more importantly the Govt destroys the incentive to create wealth.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[gandhi_2]

See also: slave labor.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Pseudonym Authority]

No. Let me guess, you `invest' your money into gold. *snicker*

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

If the government spends money on a program that adds more value to the economy than the cost of the program (such as food assistance, which has close to a 2:1 return), then the government has produced wealth. Whether the entity is public or private doesn't figure into it at all.

That money the government spent was taken away from someone who then couldn't invest it in something else. So, in order to show a net benefit to society, it's not sufficient to show that the government produced a positive return, it's necessary to show that it produced a positive return that was larger than the person the money was taken away from would have gotten, and that these benefits are large enough to compensate for the additional negative effects that taxation and government spending have.

Of course, your claim of a "2:1 return" is unsubstantiated to begin with. The USDA study where this number seems to come from (you fail to provide sources for your ridiculous statement, so you leave your readers guessing) claims an economic multiplier of 1.79. An "economic multiplier" is not a "return". You can have "economic multipliers" with no net benefit to society at all, or even negative "returns". And even that number is based on a single report, using an economic model (rather than empirical data), created by single person at an organization with a strong interest to make SNAP appear in a positive light.

I happen to think SNAP is one of the better welfare programs and should continue, but your statements about it border on fraud.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[rtb61]

I can't believe anyone could be that ignorant. Piles of printed paper, digital records in computers, lumps of shiny metal, various crystals are all completely and totally valueless with economic activity defining their wealth. It is the trade in goods, resources and, skills that define value and hence wealth. Your simpleton view, that somehow you can survive in a capitalistic world sitting on your meaningless hoard without spending it and creating economic activity, is just so unfathomably ignorant.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

You happen to be wrong because you are forgetting the multiplier effect. Every dollar the government spends is spent repeatedly before it ends up stopped in a savings account or cash horde somewhere. This is why income/wealth is taxed in the first place, to force it back into circulation.

This is so ridiculous that I can't tell whether you are trying to make fun of Keynesian economics and progressivism or whether you are that ignorant.

Just on the off-chance that you are actually serious...

Savings and interest payments have the opposite effect, money that is hoarded is a drag on the economy and does not create wealth.

Money that is "saved" is actually invested by others who know what to do with it. When you go to the bank and put your money there, it is immediately put into circulation by others to start companies, expand their businesses, build houses, buy cars, and generate value. That is the primary driver of economic growth. The more you interfere with that through taxation, the worse off we all end up being.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for infrastructure. Bridges and roads create wealth. Efficiency may be debated but infrastructure does add value to society. Defense, law, and order operate on the premise of preventing the destruction of wealth. Debating about what the government should do and how it should do it is one thing. Acting like the government is nothing but bad is silly and naive. Someone will be in charge.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Dunbal]

You're missing a zero. The government spent $12,000 for that $1000 widget. What with bureaucrats and bribes and kickbacks and stuff... widgets are expensive!

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[ArsonSmith]

Savings and investment are also wealth generators because it's money being loaned out to people who have some sort of track record of knowing what to do with it, otherwise there wouldn't be any interest payments.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberal arguments are all to often indistinguishable from sarcasm. Not sure if you really believe any of that or not.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[ArsonSmith]

The government able to pay for crap like this is proof that we are over taxed, and the government get's too much funding.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no problem paying taxes. I have no problem seeing the government spending that tax money. I do have a problem with wasting tax money. And as an engineer who works on government sponsored programs, let me tell you that there is a ton of waste just in my field.

So from that perspective, when the government tells me that I need to pay another $100 and I know that $50 of that is going to some bloated bureaucratic process that adds no value, or to a subcontractor who is actually going to do the bulk of the work, or that the "product" is not worth the price, yeah, I think that is unjust. (I pulled those numbers out of the air by the way.)

This is the argument that the tea party and conservative talking heads try to make. The issue isn't that the government is stealing money. It's that it is blatantly ripping taxpayers off to finance the interests of politicians.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Alomex]

We are undertaxed. How can we tell? because we are running a deficit. As simple as that.

Say if you go to a restaurant and start paying by installments. How do you go about finding out if you have over or underpaid? well you check to see if you still have a deficit on your tab, if there is still one you haven't paid enough. It is no different with the government,

What you are trying to say is that the government is overspending and I might or might not agree with you (in fact, I agree with you: it overspends by a mile particularly in defense matters and tax subsidies to the wealthy people/corporations), but saying we are overtaxed today is a factual falsehood propagated by the GOP. Given current levels of expenditures we are way under-taxed.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

The private world has the profit motive for keeping it productive.

They have the motive to make profit. That does not necessarily equate to being productive. There are many companies right now that have increased profits with decreased revenues and decreased production. Where's the wealth building in that?

Note that $5 in spending produces $9 in spending not wealth. So right there we don't have a 2:1 return. As I see it, we take $5 of someone's money and use it to generate far less than $5 of value - feeding someone who can feed themselves. That's negative return on investment right there.

You are correct that spending does not equal wealth building. However, there is some correlation. Spending on durable goods is a good indicator of wealth building. The U.S. GDP is somewhere around $16 trillion. U.S. wealth is calculated at over $100 trillion.

It's a destructive economic gimmick to conflate spending or economic activity with wealth creation. They aren't equivalent or even correlated. For example, a disaster creates a lot of spending and economic activity (from reconstruction efforts), but it results in a net loss of wealth.

There is certainly spending that represents a consumption of wealth as well as spending that represents the production of wealth. I think you might be interested in this graph The bottom 40% have .2% and yet we are led to believe that we should tax them more. The government could tax everything they have and it would be almost nothing.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's that it is blatantly ripping taxpayers off to finance the interests of politicians.

....and finance the interests of the lobbying corporations who get said politicians elected (from either party).

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you cannot tell that science and technology are wealth producing you are stupider than I thought.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

Well, I think then the government should take all the money you earn and reallocate it. You can live in public housing and get SNAP for food. According to you, it's clear that that would produce the greatest societal benefits, since the government according to you knows better what to do with your earnings than you do.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[evilviper]

money that is hoarded is a drag on the economy and does not create wealth.

That's only true if your "savings" is stuffed in your mattress. If your "savings" is in a bank "Saving Account", Money Market Account, Certificate of Deposit, or similar, it's quite beneficial to the economy, as the bank then loans the money out, giving you a cut of the interest.

This should be something you learn when you are 5 years old... The same bank you use for your savings and checking accounts, is where you go to get a mortgage when you want to buy a house.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats how it works. No amount of spin or web of lies changes it.

That might be how it works in the US.

Where I live the government saw a need in certain fields that the private market didn't fill so the government started its own companies to solve those issues.
The government run companies worked reasonably well and was economic producers.

The way you seem to want it to work is that the government should be an economic drain no matter what it does. You can do it that way if you want to bet that doesn't mean that everyone else have to follow.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[liamevo]

How stupid did you think AC was?

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Joce640k]

Bzzt! You lose. For your "theory", lets say the government buys a $1000 widget. It didn't produce that widget, it spent the money to buy that widget. It didn't spend $1000 for that widget, it spent $1200 because the government has its overhead.

Bzzt! You lose. The government pays at least 400% markup on anything it buys.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

As I see it, we take $5 of someone's money and use it to generate far less than $5 of value - feeding someone who can feed themselves.

It's the damn rich people! They're so fucking cheap they can't pass up a free meal! Most of those social welfare-types are actually independently wealthy. And they are hardly grateful for all the arduous work you put in supporting the economy and paying your taxes to pay for these programs... they're just getting richer saving money on soup while you alone labor endlessly, being a self-made man than never had any help from anyone ever.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[TheRaven64]

Wow, that's the most oversimplified attempt at discussing economics I've seen for a long time. Hint: economics is complicated - if it were easy we'd have a simple working system that everyone could agree one (or, at least, the people who worked out out would get very rich by betting on the economy 100% correctly and other people would notice) - and any explanation that simple is likely to be wrong.

Consider the following counter example:

The government builds and maintains a road between two places. This employs people, taking them out of the labour pool where they could be doing other things, so it's a cost. But it also allows the two places to trade more cheaply, which increases wealth production. Similarly, employers at either end of the road would have access to a wider pool of employees and potential employees to a wider pool of employers and so people would end up in more productive employment.

Now, would the same apply if private industry built the road? This is where it starts to get more complicated. First, who would build the road? It might be some consortium of businesses at both ends who wanted to use it. If so, then they might charge money to anyone not part of the consortium to use it, which would give them a competitive advantage, but be less healthy for the economy as a whole by producing a barrier to competition (and, most specifically, a barrier to entry for new companies).

It might be a third party that thought that the road would be profitable, who would run it as a 'common carrier' toll road. This, however, would provide a disincentive for people to use it. If they priced it too low, then they'd go out of business (which would discourage future road-building companies). If they priced it too high, then they'd make it unprofitable for some users to use it, however given that the cost of the road is now a sunk cost the economy as a whole benefits if as many people as would gain any benefit at all from it use it.

In some cases, the benefit to the economy may be significantly lower than the cost of the road, so it would not make sense for the government to make the investment. It's often difficult to make that call, however. In the UK, be Beeching Report identified a large number of unprofitable railway lines and, to save taxpayer money, the nationalised railway service closed them. Unfortunately, it turned out that a lot of the unprofitable lines were ones that got people from near where they lived to a more profitable line. When they were closed, people at the edges ended up having to buy cars, which meant that they no longer used the larger lines either, and so pushed those into unprofitability (and so there was a second Beeching Report some years later which repeated the entire mistake). The cost to the economy of no longer having a widespread, cheap, railway network is widely agreed by economists to be significantly greater than the savings from closing the lines.

A nationally owned private rail operator may have seen further ahead, but most likely they'd have had shareholders making the same demands: sell off the unprofitable lines and concentrate on the profitable ones. A larger number of smaller railway operators would have had similar problems, with the ones operating the unprofitable lines going out of business and reducing demand on the profitable ones.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[khallow]

No. Let me guess, you `invest' your money into gold. *snicker*

No, I was merely stating the obvious.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government isn't a producer of wealth.

Neither is a doctor or an accountant. That doesn't mean they're not worth the money.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[khallow]

Piles of printed paper, digital records in computers, lumps of shiny metal, various crystals are all completely and totally valueless with economic activity defining their wealth.

No. Such things are considered wealth because they either have value to someone or they can be exchanged for things that have value to someone.

It is the trade in goods, resources and, skills that define value and hence wealth.

No. It is the goods, resources, and skills that have value to someone and hence, are wealth. Trade expedites the matching of the providing of such things to those who need such things. Yes, it does create wealth by enabling cooperative behavior that wouldn't exist in the absence of the trade. But the trade itself is not the wealth.

Your simpleton view, that somehow you can survive in a capitalistic world sitting on your meaningless hoard without spending it and creating economic activity, is just so unfathomably ignorant.

Well, you're clearly not the person to enlighten me. You don't even understand the point of trade.

For an example of why economic activity is not wealth, disasters routinely encourage economic activity while simultaneously destroying wealth.

Look at the post I replied to. Original poster was whining about how every dollar (or other unit of currency) that a government spends was taken from someone. His response was that that the money seized would be spent multiple times (In practice less than two times). Note the mismatch of meaning, wealth is compared to activity (not even GDP which can be construed as a weak measure of wealth creation, but merely activity). This is deceptive since as in the example above, you can easily have considerable economic activity in the presence of wealth destruction.

In my link above, I discuss the "SNAP" program which is some sort of food assistance program in the US. They use the same obnoxious deception. $5 of wealth becomes $9 of economic activity. Apples are compared to oranges.

If we were doing a legitimate comparison, it would be $5 of wealth resulted in a person getting some food (which they could have otherwise obtained themselves) and that's it. The economic activity would have no real value since the $5 taxed would also have been used for such purposes or for investment (what you call "hoarding"). So $5 of someone's money is used for fairly frivolous purposes (much less than $5 of value).

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[khallow]

There is certainly spending that represents a consumption of wealth as well as spending that represents the production of wealth. I think you might be interested in this graph [wikipedia.org] The bottom 40% have .2% and yet we are led to believe that we should tax them more. The government could tax everything they have and it would be almost nothing.

Let us keep in mind that the "bottom 40%" engage in wealth-wasting behavior such as drug use, excessive and financially foolish spending, gambling, etc. Even if they don't have wealth, they do get an income. If we're going to spend more money, might as well get more from the people who aren't using it.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[stdarg]

Say if you go to a restaurant and start paying by installments. How do you go about finding out if you have over or underpaid? well you check to see if you still have a deficit on your tab, if there is still one you haven't paid enough.

The issue isn't about overpaying, it's about over-ordering. You have $10. The restaurant charges $8 for a burger, and $12 for steak. You order the steak. The deficit is most directly caused by your ordering decision, not the fact that you didn't bring enough cash, because the ordering decision happened after you had full knowledge of your cash on hand and the price on the menu.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Show some evidence that, per capita, the "bottom 40%" spend more money on the "wealth-wasting" activities you listed. That would be fascinating to see... I'd find it easier to believe that the top 5% spend more money on gambling alone than the bottom 40% on all those listed activities combined...

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Valdrax]

The government isn't a producer of wealth. Every penny it spends is taken from us.

Whereas the private sector just pulls money out of thin air, huh?

What exactly does it mean to produce wealth in your mind? Please explain in a such a manner that accounts for both inputs and outputs and yet explains how the government's use of money doesn't meet this definition.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[conorpeterson]

Losing my mod points, but whatever.

The way I see it, the "return" from $5 spent on food stamps is that our society is $5 less awful to live in. And in the long term society may even get that $5 back.

Poverty is an incredibly deep gravitational well. It doesn't matter how it begins (though try asking an adult student), the dynamics work the same: soon you're skipping bills, deferring maintenance on your car, canceling your internet connection, carrying a balance on your credit cards, etc. It makes you incredibly vulnerable to the ordinary snags of life. Maybe your alternator dies. Maybe you catch the flu and lose 3 days from your temp job. If you have dependents for any reason (maybe even your parents) the possibilities compound swiftly: field trip fees, copays for chronic conditions like blood thinners or endometriosis... even, god help you, orthodontics.

You can spend months in employment limbo, biking to the public library to search for jobs, skipping laundry and cutting your own hair, but you can't defer hunger. For people who are in this scenario SNAP is enormously beneficial. If your income is less than a grand per month, even fifty bucks in food stamps is major reassurance that you will not die in the street or get sick from malnutrition while you try to claw your way back to safety.

It may surprise you but nutrition recipients are not all diabetic polyps fixed to the backside of civilization. Back in college and even graduate school I had plenty of acquaintances on food stamps. Now they are university professors, lawyers, counselors and school teachers. As far as ROI goes, it looks like society came out ahead as virtually all of them are now productive taxpayers.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Alomex]

I agree, that's exactly my point: We are not overtaxed.

Depending on your political preferences we are either overspending or undertaxed (or both). But we most definitely are not overtaxed. This is follows from basic accounting definitions. As simple as that.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[ArsonSmith]

Yet it has been proven time and again that lowering high taxes increases revenue for the government due to increased economic activity. getting $100 from 10 transactions is not as good as getting $10 form 1000 because people aren't being charge $100 per taxable transaction they will do significantly more of them. This is not theory it is proven with actual tax rate changes, both raising and lowering throughout history and in every country that kept records.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[khallow]

Poverty is an incredibly deep gravitational well. It doesn't matter how it begins

Sure, it does. Programs like food assistance are one cause. That $5 comes from in large part from people who would have employed other people or invested in those who would. Months in employment limbo happens because the job is not there.

Back in college and even graduate school I had plenty of acquaintances on food stamps.

So what? They could have paid for their food and still be university professors and whatnot. ROI is not just that money was spent and good things happened afterward. You have to show that the outcome was better than it otherwise would have been.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[ArsonSmith]

Accounting is a very poor indicator of tax increase/decrease. If you say we had a tax rate of 20% and took in $2b that doesn't mean that a 30% tax rate will bring in $3b or that a 10% tax rate will only bring in $1b.

Otherwise the government could just say, "Look there are 100 Million movie goers every year, lets just add a $1000 tax to movie tickets and we'd be out of debt in no time." Obviously at this high tax rate they will get almost no income from movie ticket sales, also they will get no income from movies even being made as that economy will also drop to near zero. They'll also miss out on the tax revenue from the income tax that supports that entire industry. Everything else is a matter of degree. if no tax rate gives 100 million movie goers and 1% tax rate only changes that to 99.9 million that may be an acceptable change, if 10% drops that to 90 million and 50% drops that to 35 million and 100% drops that to 10 million you will find sever demising returns on tax revenue.

High taxes from the government can only be used to punish unwanted behavior not to increase revenue.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are viable commercial benefits from scientific or infrastructural investments, then there is no need for govt to invest in them as private business will.

When govt "invests" in science or infrastructure, its usually because private businesses have either been banned from doing so themselves (California and its Caltrans monopoly for one glaring example among many), or the potential value does not justify the initial cost.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Alomex]

Yet it has been proven time and again that lowering high taxes increases revenue for the government due to increased economic activity

Actually not at all. FoxNews and the GOP repeat this all the time hoping that naive people will fall for it, but if you look at actual evidence there is no support for this claim.

All present evidence by economists from all sides of the political spectrum suggest that we are on the other side of the Laffer curve, the one where increased taxes means increased revenues. See for example the Bush Sr and Clinton tax increases.

Let me be clear, I agree very much that it is possible to tax so much that a reduction of taxes would mean an increase in revenues, i.e. the Laffer curve does exist. Having established its existence then we need to find on which side of the curve are we. The UK with its 100%+ tax rates in the 60s-70s was very clearly on the side of "lower tax rates and you will get more money". As I said, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that the US is not in that part of the curve.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every penny we spend is borrowed from the Chinese with interest rates lower than the rate of inflation.
I can't even fucking comprehend how or why this is happening.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

and that increasing supply of pennies and dollars represent a less-increasing supply of wealth. Or are you really so fucking dumb as to think its the pennies and dollars that have value?

If the value of all goods and services (i.e the human labor) of all Americans increases by, say, 1% over a year, but the total value of the money supply increases by 6%, you know what that is dumbshit? Its called inflation.

Pennies and dollars are just tokens that represent the value of human labor. Increasing the amount of pennies and dollars without an increase in the value of human labor does nothing but ~reduce~ the value of pennies and dollars.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[ArsonSmith]

I checked on Clinton tax policy and most definitely his reduction of taxes in Capital gains significantly increased revenue.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Alomex]

You cannot look at isolated taxes, some go up, some go down. The tax take as percentage of GDP went up steadily for all of Clinton years in office.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205

So did revenues. That was the only time in recent memory that the USA posted a budget surplus.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[Lendrick]

Ya know what would be weird?

If, say, there were actually a gradual curve between pure capitalism and pure communism, and the optimal point along that curve were somewhere in between the far ends. That would be really strange. But the world is a very simple, black and white place, and everything is completely straightforward, and there's no middle ground, which is why slippery slope arguments are always true and correct.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Lendrick]

Bzzt! You lose. For your "theory", lets say the government buys a $1000 widget. It didn't produce that widget, it spent the money to buy that widget. It didn't spend $1000 for that widget, it spent $1200 because the government has its overhead. The best part is it took that $1200 from wealth producers and it cost the government an additional $100 to run the IRS for that. On top of that it will probably spend $400 in interest on loans for that original amount.

If that's true, then banks and venture capitalists certainly don't add wealth to the economy, because all they do is loan out money to other people so those people can pay other people to produce things.

Also, there's real data on the returns on food assistance, whereas you're making up shit about widgets and pulling arbitrary numbers out of the air. If you're going to bother making an argument against real numbers, at least do a tiny bit of fucking homework and find real numbers of your own. The ones you've pulled out of your ass are meaningless in any kind of serious discussion.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

As I see it, we take $5 of someone's money and use it to generate far less than $5 of value - feeding someone who can feed themselves.

But they can't feed themselves, you heartless moron. Do you have any idea how damned poor you have to be to get food stamps? Apparently not, you think there are enough jobs to go around and that everyone is capable of working. That well dressed woman you see in the grocery store, paying with LINK and driving off in a Cadillac? She's a dope dealer. She trades crack for LINK cards at fifty cents on the dollar; crack heads don't eat.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

As I see it, we take $5 of someone's money and use it to generate far less than $5 of value - feeding someone who can feed themselves.

Question, motherfucker! Do you beg it?

So forcing an otherwise able worker to have to scrounge for food all day instead of focusing on a potentially in-demand skill they have, just to not starve to death, doesn't destroy value? Please answer yes, so I can grasp just how big of an idiot you are and move on.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should pull the Tea Party propaganda out of your ass (which you've obviously mistaken with your head). Your example applies to poor governments that people in the US have selected in an extremely self-defeating manner. When you vote for your own demise, you only have yourself to blame. Many other countries do not have this problem, because they TAKE CONTROL of their government and force it to do the people's bidding. Their government adds exponential value to the lives of the citizenry, because that is it's only purpose, and most importantly the ONLY POWER IT HAS.

Their government does not literally give tens of trillions in subsidies and backroom deals to corporations like the US has been proven to do in multiplicity. All this while vast swaths of hopelessly ignorant people rail on about welfare queens who don't even make a statistical error of a dent in the amount of money that is funneled from taxpayers directly into corporate coffers. Only willful ignorance allows one to ignore the hurricane over the drops of water hitting them.

Their government does not actively work against the wishes of the people, like the US has been proven to do in multiplicity. Many countries offer universal healthcare, which in nearly every case has proven to be better than the US in both quality and cost. In every case it is applied to, removing the profit motive from an industry has been proven to vastly increase efficiency, quality and innovation. A cursory Google search will provide copious amounts of evidence for this if you are not afraid to challenge your indoctrination. Remember to avoid the politically driven sites; ONLY process raw data or you will be acquiring unwanted bias with your data.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us keep in mind that the "bottom 40%" engage in wealth-wasting behavior such as drug use, excessive and financially foolish spending, gambling, etc. Even if they don't have wealth, they do get an income. If we're going to spend more money, might as well get more from the people who aren't using it.

There isn't a big enough "citation needed" tag for the bullshit you are spewing. Just because you saw a movie once, where poor people all hung out in a crackhouse doing drugs, doesn't really make you an expert. Sorry.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it is obvious you failed at both mathematics and economics :)

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[JazzLad]

Considering the job creation is only a side-affect (and a positive one at that), why on earth would they not mention it? I have personally benefited from SNAP & think it's terrific if there are beneficial side-affects, because the main affect means the difference between eating and eating healthily for many children (including my own for a brief period). Does everyone that receives SNAP spend wisely? No, but many do and it's value is is often underestimated by those fortunate enough to never need it.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

And let's not forget the fact that the top 1% engage in literally trillions of dollars worth of wealth-wasting behavior. They spend untold trillions in getting politicians elected to subvert everybody else's rights. You are choosing to pick the scraps of fat while ignoring the glaringly obvious problem that is several orders of magnitude more severe.

You would be able to see the forest, if only it weren't for all the grass!

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government able to pay for crap like this is proof that we are over taxed, and the government get's too much funding.

Your comment shows that rather than being overtaxed, their priorities are ass-backwards. They should put more of that money into public education so you semiliterates wouldn't annoy me so much with your ignorance.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

It was Ohnocitizen who saw the world in black-and-white, arguing that any positive return by the government whatsoever was better than any profit. Since SNAP has a positive return, according to his criteria, it would be best for everybody if we took away all his money. I simply said that taxation and social programs need to be justified by clearly demonstrating that the societal benefits outweigh the costs.

As for "slippery slope", that's not my idea. In fact, it's the idea of Marx and Lenin, who argued (in effect) that taxation, social programs, and other such progressive favorites are the road towards the realization of communism.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Alomex]

High taxes from the government can only be used to punish unwanted behavior not to increase revenue.

Not so. Higher taxes during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations increased revenue. Look it up. In fact data suggests that revenue will continue increasing, albeit progressively more slowly, until somewhere around 60-70% of GDP. Of course at that level we are getting rather diminishing returns, so it is not worth chasing the last 10-15%. However from a purely revenue perspective collections would increase rather nicely until around a net tax rate of 50%.

As I said, there might be many other reasons why we wouldn't want that to happen (for example, personally I'm philosophically opposed to the government taking more than half your profits), but lower revenues is not a valid reason against that taxation level.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the argument that the tea party and conservative talking heads try to make. The issue isn't that the government is stealing money. It's that it is blatantly ripping taxpayers off to finance the interests of politicians.

Then it would really help their argument if they didn't happily and assuredly participate in the exact behavior they are claiming to try and fix. Do you often trust wolves to guard your sheep or something?

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me if you think that this is providing a 2:1 return:

A receipt found by a coworker at her local Wal-Mart. (note the EBT Snap at the bottom)

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me if you think that this is providing a 2:1 return:

A receipt found by a coworker at her local Wal-Mart. (note the EBT Snap at the bottom)

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Lendrick]

Okay, I'm convinced.

The existence of this single data point disproves research and statistical analysis.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

A study produced by the USDA for a program ran by the USDA may count as "research and statistical analysis", a better description would be " highly biased research and statistical analysis".

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[ArsonSmith]

Yep, looked it up, higher taxes killed the economy just before the lower taxes spurred it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/07/16/the-dangerous-myth-about-the-bill-clinton-tax-increase/

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/07/16/the-dangerous-myth-about-the-bill-clinton-tax-increase/

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry dude, your Forbes article has a "who are you gonna believe me or your lying eyes" written all over it.

It is full of intellectual contortions and non-sequiturs such as "the taxes were unpopular with the middle class" and "Clinton thinks he raised the taxes too much". Maybe true, maybe not, but this has nothing to do with the argument the author is trying to make which is that the tax increases led to the boom in the 90s.

Even more importantly I never argued Clinton tax increases lead to a boom. All I argued is that they didn't lead to a boost and that clearly was the case.

You started with the axiom that higher taxes result in lower revenues and I see you are not about to change your mind, evidence be damned.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Lendrick]

And the receipt you linked a screenshot to is highly biased due to selection bias (look here, I found a receipt that makes my point!), and contains no research or analysis whatsoever. You provide no data at all except for a single cherry-picked receipt and then criticize the source of mine because you think there might be bias in it, based on your perceptions of the source?

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[Lendrick]

As for "slippery slope", that's not my idea. In fact, it's the idea of Marx and Lenin, who argued (in effect) that taxation, social programs, and other such progressive favorites are the road towards the realization of communism.

It was just as fallacious when they used it. Marx and Lenin, much like Ayn Rand and her ilk, are wrong about all sorts of things.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[Lendrick]

Also, I noticed you're avoiding my actual point.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors and accountants both create wealth, as do hair stylists, etc. They all do things people value and are willing to trade their labor for - and thus you have wealth.

Unless youre one of those who thinks wealth is only material things, in which case you do not understand economics.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[scot4875]

You have to show that the outcome was better than it otherwise would have been.

Which is a demand that's absolutely impossible to meet, so you can sleep comfortably that nobody will ever "defeat" your argument.

Well played.

--Jeremy

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[scot4875]

Well, I think then the government should take all the money you earn and reallocate it. You can live in public housing and get SNAP for food. According to you, it's clear that that would produce the greatest societal benefits, since the government according to you knows better what to do with your earnings than you do.

That's a pretty terrible strawman. Would you like to actually provide an argument, or is this the limit of your intellectual honesty?

--Jeremy

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[ArsonSmith]

No, i said high taxes result in lower revenues. Of course taxes of zero don't produce infinite revenue. If you're looking for the opinion part of my post it's that the government should hover in the point below where revenues go down and error on the too low side.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[khallow]

Which is a demand that's absolutely impossible to meet, so you can sleep comfortably that nobody will ever "defeat" your argument.

Opportunity cost is always very difficult to show. It's not so funny now when you have to do that rather than me.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

I gave clear criteria for when government programs are economically justified. What more do you want?

I suppose I can say one more thing. You wrote:

If, say, there were actually a gradual curve between pure capitalism and pure communism, and the optimal point along that curve were somewhere in between the far ends.

There is no such thing as "pure capitalism" or "pure communism". You're babbling in meaningless ideologies. There are economic policies, and some of them benefit society while others don't according to some criteria that we need to agree on. So you're even starting with the wrong assumptions.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

It was just as fallacious when they used it. Marx and Lenin, much like Ayn Rand and her ilk, are wrong about all sorts of things.

Well, there you have your answer: you can't have a "gradual curve" between communism and anything because Marx and Lenin didn't know what they were talking about and communism is not a logically sound economic theory.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

It's not intended to be an argument; it's cynicism and ridicule. For the argument look up in the thread.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's that the government should hover in the point below where revenues go down and error on the too low side.

This makes eminent sense. Luckily presently we are well below that point presently.

We could easily increase the tax take 5% and not have to fear going over that point. At the same time we should also remove waste, particularly large subsidies to extremely profitable corporations and individuals and unnecessary military expenditures (google all the projects that the military has said they don't want or need yet keep on getting renewed every year by Congress, many of them in red states btw).

I'm talking about very profitable enterprises such as oil companies and large agro that would still be in business if their yearly returns in capital went down from 19% to 17%.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[ohnocitizen]

Judging by the moderation and scorn, looks like some slashdot readers have a real bug up their ass about taxes, and an absurd love for and trust of private enterprise. That's been working out just dandy so far, hasn't it?

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[ohnocitizen]

Since my comment got modded down and you got modded up for basic bullshit, I guess things like investment in cures (not profitable treatment) for disease, or investment in education designed to produce citizens vs consumers/worker bees, just isn't worthwhile. Let's trust companies and rich people to invest. Yay trickle down!

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

How would we know how it would work out? Since WWII, we have had a nearly constant rise in government spending and entitlements. Yet if you listen to progressives, poverty, racism, lack of health care, and other problems are rampant. And despite spending much more per capita on health care and education than other nations, we're doing no better. Government spending is nearly 40% of GDP now; how much higher does it have to go according to you before the utopia you promise will arrive? And where is the evidence?

Yes, we "have a bug up our ass" about higher taxes. It's not because because we are stingy or care about the money, it's because the path people like you want to go not only fails to deliver on its promise, it is destroying our society and it will turn us into the same kind of rotten and stagnant societies that you find in Europe.

Re: It costs the government NOTHING.

[stenvar]

I guess things like investment in cures (not profitable treatment) for disease, or investment in education designed to produce citizens vs consumers/worker bees, just isn't worthwhile.

People like you have never shown that increasingly transferring these functions to government or spending more money on them even achieve their stated goals. In fact, it's clear they don't: we're spending far more than European nations and getting no better results.

Let's trust companies and rich people to invest. Yay trickle down!

Ah, "trickle down", an invention of the left and a convenient straw man to put up when you don't have any arguments. Trickle down is obviously a stupid idea and it doesn't work. "Trickle down" is not why people advocate lower taxes, except in the minds of left wing demagogues. Lowering taxes and limiting the size of government isn't primarily about money. It's about people taking responsibility for their own lives instead of assuming that all their needs will be taken care of for them by a rich, powerful political elite and the apparatus they run.

If progressives and "liberals" really cared about providing for "the poor", we could do that with a simple negative income tax; I'd be all for that even if it cost more than the entitlement system we currently have (but it would actually cost much less). But progressives and liberals don't care about that, what they care about is shaping society, based on the assumption that everybody other than a small elite is too stupid to make their own decisions.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[stdarg]

I agree, that's exactly my point: We are not overtaxed.

That's true, but it's not the issue. Nobody is concerned with whether the amount of tax collected is equal to the amount of tax that is supposed to be collected.

Just like your restaurant example, you're focusing on something that nobody is concerned about (overpaying your bill, versus over-ordering your food). I guess this is a technically a strawman argument even though you are literally correct. It's just that when people say they're overtaxed, they are not talking about what you're talking about.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Alomex]

It's just that when people say they're overtaxed, they are not talking about what you're talking about.

So it's they which are equivocating and selling a false bill of goods. This actually suggests that the arguments for tax cuts are not very good, and hence they have to rely on misstatements such as "we are overtaxed" to support them.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[stdarg]

So it's they which are equivocating

"Overtaxed" means you feel that you are paying too much for what you get from the government. Going back to your restaurant analogy, it's like saying the food is overpriced. Since the tax an individual pays is his price for government it's a pretty good analogy.

In some hypothetical literal sense of "overpriced", nothing is "overpriced" because the price is what it is. That type of reasoning seems a bit silly. We know what "overpriced" and "overtaxed" mean and I don't think it's an equivocation to use these well known terms as they're commonly defined.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Alomex]

"Overtaxed" means you feel that you are paying too much for what you get from the government.

Nope. Republicans have re-written the definition to mean that, but it is incorrect.

Going back to your restaurant analogy, it's like saying the food is overpriced.

Correct, there is a term for that which is "overpriced", yet republicans on purpose are using the term "overcharged" in an attempt to muddle the issue.

A place might charge you $2K for a burger which is waaay overpriced, but it you knowingly go in and order the two-grand burger you cannot complain about being overcharged.

Similarly with the government, every year we elect representatives who spend like drunken sailors, particularly republicans, who keep on increasing the spending tab while decreasing revenues. Keep in mind that the largest decrease in deficit took place during the Clinton administration, the largest increase took place during Bush Jr. with the book on Obama yet to be written.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[stdarg]

Nope. Republicans have re-written the definition to mean that, but it is incorrect.

If the definition has been rewritten, then now it is correct and you're incorrect. Do a search for "the rich are undertaxed" and you'll find that Democrats are in full agreement with Republicans about what under/over taxed means, and it has nothing to do with whether they were taxed what they were supposed to be taxed. It means the taxes are too low. Overtaxed means the taxes are too high.

Correct, there is a term for that which is "overpriced", yet republicans on purpose are using the term "overcharged" in an attempt to muddle the issue.

Overcharge:
Verb
Charge (someone) too high a price for goods or a service.
Noun
An excessive charge for goods or a service.

Seems legit to me... again based on the common usage.

Re:It costs the government NOTHING.

[Anonymous Coward]

then now it is correct and you're incorrect

Think about this for a second. If I convince every one to call you Satan would it then be correct?

slightly off topic

[Presto Vivace]

US govt views privacy-enhancing encryption as an illegal weapon

Re:slightly off topic

[Presto Vivace]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/950403/archive_010975.htm

Re:slightly off topic

[Pseudonym]

It's not quite that bad. The current rules are complex and stupid, but not necessarily more evil than any similar complex bureaucratic regulation.

Re:slightly off topic

[AHuxley]

US govt views privacy-enhancing encryption without a US back door as an illegal weapon.
You can export and offer all the strong encryption you like and present it internationally.
The text or voice or data entry would be on MS or some other US OS/hardware.
The cloud 'key' better turn it back to plain text on a US server.
You data is safe in transit, never safe at each US end.
Think CALEA with extra "illegal weapon" jail time if you or your company does not want to sit down and play nice.

Its about the money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, its all about the money. As bad as it is for the companies to sell this information, I find it much worse that that the government is secretly spending our money on spying on us. A warrant will get them access for free if its justified, right?

Sequester the NSA's funding please. Congress, really, how unpopular would it be to take that money away and spend it on some other stupid program or maybe even a good one?

Save some taxes while you fuck off you fuckers

[Anonymous Coward]

Their is a simple way for the goverment to save at least fifty percent and stop playing spy. Instead of paying all that freaken tax money to phone companies, just pay my bill and front me a few bucks each month, pay ten bucks to get a second phone on my line. This sure as hell makes me think they have way too much time on their hands to fuck off instead of doing something usefull.

NSA budget is classified

[Anonymous Coward]

i mean, if you want to start talking about leaks of highly sensitive information, you cant get much more sensitive.
whoever put this info out there is basically, legally, the same as edward snowden.

and also a bunch of people on obama's staff who leaked classified info about the bin ladin raid.

Re:NSA budget is classified

[Qzukk]

What could this possibly have to do with the NSA budget? This is just what different companies charge the government for wiretaps, that's all.

Wonder what Sprint charges?

[pecosdave]

Because they're sure not using it to make their network worth a crap.

Re:Wonder what Sprint charges?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're expanding their direct connections to the NSA. They found out it's a better business model to set up wiretaps than it is to provide good internet connections.

Re:Wonder what Sprint charges?

[pecosdave]

By having a shitty network it could be argued Sprint is looking out for their customers privacy.

Re:Wonder what Sprint charges?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they're sure not using it to make their network worth a crap.

I was wondering the same thing... I'm betting Spring just gives it away!!!

Empower me

[Anonymous Coward]

So the NSA is going to do it anyways... at least let me sell my data. Give me a tax break or something...

Telecoms

[PopeRatzo]

If the day ever comes, the people in charge of these telecoms need to be the first ones put up against the wall.

Well, maybe the second ones...

These fees acting as a handout...

[PhuckIndian]

to the big telcos. Treat it as a form of stimulus.

Good for Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

I' d rather be on the network that charges the government the most to listen to my phone calls...

Do I have this right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Additional cost to the government to use Prism to get your calls if they don't have a warrant - $0.00
Cost to the government if they have a warrant - $375 to $775

Re:Do I have this right?

[AHuxley]

The Prism aspect seems to be a 24/7 open pipe for the FBI links/launders/obfuscates to the NSA.
For something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A you would only need a few cleared contractors for every packet.
The warrant seems to be more an exchange level log/link/tap just on your line and seems to need hands on efforts or internal legally cleared US admin paperwork.
Roving taps, sneak and peek and other PATRIOT Act fun seems to be lost in the funding mix?

Re:Nope

[Isara]

I totally would if I could. Seriously, was it necessary to prove your point?

Cut out the middleman

[fustakrakich]

Let me sell my shit direct.

Wait

[superwiz]

Can I get in on that action? That's waaaay more money than a phone subscription would cost. I'll record all of my own conversations on all communication devices (and I'll increase the number of those that I have by a factor of 10-100) if they pay me half of that amount for each device-subscription combo. Heck, I'd do for a quarter of that amount. I'd still be ahead.

Re:Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I get in on that action? That's waaaay more money than a phone subscription would cost. I'll record all of my own conversations on all communication devices (and I'll increase the number of those that I have by a factor of 10-100) if they pay me half of that amount for each device-subscription combo. Heck, I'd do for a quarter of that amount. I'd still be ahead.

You just have to get on a wiretap list AND get the phone company to pay you.
Maybe bribing the phone company to pay you will do both.

So now we know Skypes business model

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be Skypes business model then. Well do you think Microsoft develops all these backdoors and supplies them for free? No way! The company was never worth $7 billion on it's disclosed revenue, it must have had some other value to Microsoft.

Next big elephant in the room, IS WINDOW BACKDOORED. I mean beyond the NSA certificate, has Microsoft sent down updates that are really NSA spy packages?

How much of Silicon valleys business is a subsidy from the US Gov in the form of a pay-to-spy?

Actually

[arcite]

It sounds like corporate welfare funded by government spending. ie. your tax dollars at work!

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering why Verizon paid such high dividends. (They actually do)

Thanks guys!

Re:Actually

[AHuxley]

No Spyware shall, in time of peace be loaded in any PC, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt that was the deal that W/neo-cons made with them.
They just love that welfare for businesses.

Re:Actually

[Cryacin]

More to the point, it now makes sense why they market so heavily with anyone with an arabic name, and target individuals on a no fly list! Screw monthly calls membership, wiretapping is more profitable!

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt that was the deal that W/neo-cons made with them. They just love that welfare for businesses.

Yep, lots ow welfare for the rich, nothing for the working poor.

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt that was the deal that W/neo-cons made with them. They just love that welfare for businesses.

Yep, lots ow welfare for the rich, nothing for the working poor.

Why did you write "working poor"? There is no work requirement for food stamps.

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt that was the deal that W/neo-cons made with them.

They just love that welfare for businesses.

Thank God the Democratic House, Senate, and Executive from 2008 - 2010 put an end to these sweetheart deals, then!

Sweet Jesus

[f00zbll]

I'll sell my phone records to the NSA any day as long as I get the same fee. That would pay for my cell phone bill with extra to go to my kids college fund.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree Isara, let's gas that PhuckIndian and throw him in the oven! There's gotta be at least six-million hooknosed and smarmy but wise-investing asshole trolls like PhuckIndian on the internet who deserved it.

Censor PhuckIndian, he's a racist! Racists should have their posts deleted from the internet! Especially Racists who insult the Jews, for the Jews are the only demographic stand-up comedians are not allowed to insult* !

* It's true - I went to an actual stand-up comedy show in a mid-grade club, and the Hispanic comedian railed on about Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Whites. The club was howling with laughter, then he started railing on Jews and the crowd became uncomfortable with a "ooooooooo" in unison. The comedian pointed out, "Oh, so its okay to do it to the Blacks?" Wisely setting the crowd up to make them look like not only hypocrites, but assholes. Actually, myself and my racist then-date were the only ones who laughed at the Jew jokes.

-- Ethanol-fueled

Jeez connect these dots, also off topic

[Anonymous Coward]

Just reading back through some of the linked articles below the PRISM one, geez this stuff is sickening :

"FBI urges renewal of surveillance measures after foiled al-Qaida plot"
http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2012/may/09/fbi-surveillance-measures-al-qaida

"The head of the FBI has said his agency was "exploiting" the seizure of an intact and advanced form of underwear bomb that Islamic militants in Yemen had apparently wanted to use in an attempt to target a US-based jet."

"Robert Mueller told a congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday that the supposed plot, revealed by the Associated Press on Monday, demonstrated the need to renew surveillance provisions that expire at the end of the year."

"'Underwear bomber' was working for the CIA"
http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2012/may/09/underwear-bomber-working-for-cia
Turns out later he was a CIA agent.

They're making their own terror plots, providing the explosives, RC Planes, underpants?, whatever is needed and creating their own terror plots to justify the surveillance.

I wonder if the FBI chief was in on it when he testified to Congress, or whether NSA & CIA Chiefs simply made up the plot and kept him out of the loop so he could lie to Congress with deniability.
I wonder if Obama (I'm, going to stop calling him 'President' Obama since he's clearly not in charge) was told the Underwear bomber was CIA, or was he told he was a bomber? We Obama lied to aswell?

Did Robert Mueller lie to Congress or did NSA/CIA lie to him?

Re:Jeez connect these dots, also off topic

[AHuxley]

Yes its some form of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian#Great_Persecution
Now we have a no papers needed to fly plot, in the past you just watched some property burn.

It gets worse.

[Waffle Iron]

For example, AT&T, imposes a $325 'activation fee' for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it.

These are only promotional introductory rates, good for the first 24 months. After that, the charges revert to "standard" rates, the details of which are not available anywhere.

Even the NSA has not been able to find any information on what they will have pay at the end of the promotional period.

Re:It gets worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man, this made me chuckle.

Cut out the middleman!

[John Pfeiffer]

Hell, they could just pay me and I'll conference in a number they provide on every call.

so much money

[NovaHorizon]

How about they just pay me $500/month and I'll let them listen to one of my phone lines 0.o That's a lot of money I could use right now. Hell, they can make it $3000/month and I'll let them have one of my email addresses, my skype, and one of my phone lines.. even the text messages for that line... (I'll just then be careful what I say on those specific sources xD )

Re:so much money

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of spying on someone is doing it without their knowledge. :P

Re:so much money

[crtreece]

my skype

Microsoft already gave that up for you

So what you're saying is

[WOOFYGOOFY]

So what you're saying is the telcos have a built in motivation to search for and find (or create) the perception of as much criminal wrongdoing on the part of their hapless customers as they possibly can. Don't bother telling me me they wouldn't do this- I read The Guardian, not the Washington Post.

Re:So what you're saying is

[Areyoukiddingme]

I read The Guardian

So what you're saying is, you've got that perception covered for them?

A little tidbit from the peanut gallery

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, setup that.

CALEA stands for "Cellular Assistance for Law Enforcement Agencies. It says that Cellular companies are to assist - but it doesn't say that they do it for free. What I can tell you is this:

1) Most of the taps my carrier did were done using Internet VPN's to our gear. The protocol used between the collectors (owned by the LEA) and our gear is called J-Std-25A and J-Std-25B. The PBX feeds to LEA's are controlled in the carrier by something called a "stargate".

Normally these feeds include the time, source number and destination number of a call. The contents of any text messages. The packet data of picture messages and all Internet traffic, along with the source and destination IP's. Getting actual call data requires a bit more setup and is a tad more advanced than the cheap tap prices listed. More features == more bucks.

2) When a wiretap is issued, it's signed by a judge and has a lifetime of 30 days. Data *MUST BE DELIVERED* during that 30 day period. Any data collected during that period by the carrier must be delivered to the LEA during the court order. If data is collected and not delivered, come the end of the wiretap, the LEA cannot use that data. The collection systems they use enforce this. If the VPN isn't provisioned when they get the tap order, then they have to submit a request to build a VPN, then we build the VPN, then we test, then it gets turned up. Note that the legal department at the carrier audits all tap requests before approving them. If they don't pass muster, they don't happen.

3) Most of the LEA's in question use Nortel Contivity firewalls, however, most are switching to Cisco 5505's. Most LEA's who setup this stuff have at best one guy who knows how to setup and maintain the firewall gear. Many let the makers of the collection software handle their VPN's.

4) The collection systems correlate gobs of data from multiple wiretaps and then produce reports. Lincoln Systems is one of the big players in this space.

5) Carriers cannot keep logs for long - because the volume of traffic is insane. For example - you have a firewall with a /24 block of IP's assigned for just customer NAT using overload NAT - and every IP is in use, 24/7, and just imagine how many droids are going out and checking email every 10 minutes. Remember, carriers combine markets. It's even worse if you use a Blackberry as all your traffic goes to their DC in Canada before getting out. In any case, there's always some random cop that emails crap like "I need to know who had IP address x.y.z.q on Feb. 25th." - good luck with that buddy - unless we're logging a user specifically - and that ain't a standard CALEA request, there's no way you'll ever know. With IPv6 is used, this convenience goes away, FYI - as the IP address assigned will likely be linked to the MAC of your phone's radio.
6) Under exigent circumstances, getting locational data on a user can be done by LEA - and then we'll find out what tower they're near and what sector from it. We cannot force the GPS on, but we can narrow them down to a particular 10-block area easily enough. This usually happens during kidnapping or child abduction if they have a number for a suspect who's not answering their phone..

7) Carrier IQ information is an excellent source of information on folks as well - though the LEA's don't usually get that data - when someone says they had a call drop, carrier IQ data is often queried to find out if they're correct - or if they're lying. People try to lie their way out of contracts more often than you'd believe.

8) Carries often outsource the handling of all CALEA requests to a company called Neustar. These guys take on the legal review, and tap provisioning and in some cases even the VPN stuff. They also automate their stuff as well, and run all this from their own call centers.

9) Carriers are also outsourcing lots of data to data processing houses like Terradata. Sending stuf

Re:A little tidbit from the peanut gallery

[AHuxley]

Re: If you want to use cell phones
They will still get you from the numbers you ring and sooner or later get your voice print due to the contacts made.
Say you ring 20 people. 2 could be undercover or turned - all logged. 1 could be known and under active surveillance.
If a 3G data connection was not easy to track it would have never been adopted as a standard.
The standard would have been send back to the developers until the US/UK govs where happy with it ie keep amateur scanners out, gov gets it all.
Powerful computers and voice-recognition software allowed for sigint to got vast upgrades in ~2005 for the UK.
Deep packet sniffers seem to have been added too under "maintaining the capability" from classic taps.
Everything that nation states had for war 10 years ago is now up for sale to federal task forces and city/state use depending on federal funding.

Re:A little tidbit from the peanut gallery

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything you said is a fable. Not one once of truth other than to be weasel words/phrases. Nice try .gov

Re:A little tidbit from the peanut gallery

[Anonymous Coward]

A little tidbit on how to tell if someone is making shit up.

CALEA stands for "Cellular Assistance for Law Enforcement Agencies.

as anyone who does any sort of communication work can tell you CALEA does not mean what he says it means... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act something that wrong right off the bat tells you the rest of this is bullshit.

That big price tag would be more satisfactory

[Arancaytar]

If it didn't come out of your own pocket.

Re:That big price tag would be more satisfactory

[gl4ss]

If it didn't come out of your own pocket.

well, these are just the legit on warrant taps. not the dump taps.

It's not the government that pays,

[zapyon]

it is YOU, the tax payers. So, in effect, you are all paying for being surveyed. Yes, me, too.

Why am i suddenly feeling all warm and cosy – not?

Re:It's not the government that pays,

[buck-yar]

Who cares, most people in this country are statist/authoritarians. I'm glad the govt is sucking them dry, spending $600k on facebook likes and **** like that. They voted these people in, they should reap the misery they produced.

Spending is always the goal

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been saying for years that spending is a bigger goal with these spying programs than control over the populace. In the business of government, spending is always the goal. The more money passing through their hands, the better positioned they are to exploit that cash flow for personal gain. Unique to the business of government, there is no risk in spending other people's money. You simply take more. In fact, government failure is normally rewarded with yet even more revenue, creating a repeating cycle of spending and justifications for that spending.

I cringe when I hear people refer to this as a "waste". That's exactly what government wants you to believe, because the reality is much worse than a "waste" -- it's a scam.

Save Tax Dollars

[coinreturn]

If want to save your tax dollars for something more useful, just post all your information on Facebook.

You don't think those fees get *paid*, do you?

[DutchUncle]

Maybe for individual wiretaps and criminal investigations. But the blanket surveillance? That's just co-location expenses. Remember, compliance with federal law is one of the requirements of licensing, and if federal law says "we get to look over your shoulder at your switching records" then that's just part of the cost of doing business.

Look at all the tax and right-of-way concessions already being made. It's one of the annoying little things about so-called "deregulation" - some of the regulations and requirements and price controls had been the trade-offs for free or cheap access to properties and rights-of-way to install wiring. At some point in the 1970s or 1980s the accountants took over the world and insisted on "monetizing" every layer of everything independently, which caused part of the economic bubble: the amount of money supposedly being spent to buy and sell things went way up, but the numbers were far beyond the actual productive activity - it was all about prices being put on separate things that had previously been bundled parts of the same company ("delivery + usage" of utilities, for example), or for things that had been bartered and/or cooperatively paid (electric and phone lines on the same pole co-maintained by in-house staff vs. two companies each paying a third company to maintain, plus adding cable company etc.)

Plus investment periods ran out. 50 year startup periods sounded like a long time . . . 50 years ago. All of the new suburbs built in the 50s and 60s aren't new any more.

Fed Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just offer free phone service themselves. Would be cheaper for people, free service, and cheaper for them, free surveilance.

They like to pay for this service

[gr8_phk]

Paying for a wiretap means a couple things. 1) someone probably has to authorize the money or at least a larger pool of money that its taken from. The cost is trivial for something that matters but will add up with repeated wasteful use. 2) It provides a paper trail outside of the government which can be used to trace abuses. Hey, why does this one analyst keep listening in on Warren Buffets phone calls? Oh right, echo his taps to me please... And don't mention this to anyone, it's classified... Which brings us to the grand question: How do they prevent misuse? Obviously they can't - Edward Snowden was certainly able to take information for unauthorized use.

We need to shift these costs to the consumer bill

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way to expose this mess is to shift these costs directly to the consumer.

If the government averages 1000 wiretaps/month on verizon customers and maintains them for an average of 12 months.

((1000 * $775) + (1000 * $500 * 12)) / number of verizon customers/12 months

Tax $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

"What the Government Pays To Snoop On You"

more like

What we pay the government to spy on us.

Spying is a profit center

[Larry_Dillon]

As long as carriers are making good money off snooping, they're not going to strongly oppose it. Make it so they can only charge a nominal fee (say, $20) and watch their opposition increase.

If this DOESN'T piss you off..

[kheldan]

..then there's no hope for you, none at all. You're paying for the "service", and then you're (potentially) also paying (via your taxes) to get snooped on by the goddamn NSA/CIA/FBI/whoever. How much more of this shit is everyone going to stand for?

User pays.

[Occams]

Economic rationalism says that the intelligence agencies who get the benefit should pay the cost. That provides a healthy rationing mechanism. It has been routine for decades for law enforcement agencies to pay telephone interception costs, but at an actual cost level with no profit margin. Sure it our tax dollars moving in a circle, but it holds up transparency and accountability.

choices

[Anonymous Coward]

Do any of them do Pay As You Go?

no comments

[Anonymous Coward]

wat.