When you receive paper from the government under FOIA, you are required to pay for the photocopies. Responding to your FOIA request isn't a mission directive, so it doesn't deserve budget money. It's just something the government has to do. You are requiring the government to use resources (toner, paper, time) so you have to pay for them.
Surveillance by government is the same way. Police and three-letter agencies are using engineer time, bandwidth, and potentially rack space of service providers complying with warrants. They compensate providers for those resources.
Similarly, if the police kick down an apartment door, they're supposed to compensate the landlord for the cost of a new door. If your municipal police department wanted to wiretap your cell phone, they would have to pay Verizon/AT&T/whatever a monthly fee just like you do.
In Australia at least the cost of preparing your tax return is tax deductible. For that matter the cost of visiting your accountant in order to do your taxes is tax deductible.
Nope, but everyone has to do them. But not everyone get their door kicked in. Or you could just tax people for the money the state will be paying for people to fill in there taxes ...
Your statements are all valid, but it still doesn't detract from the parent's statement that [sic] something about companies being paid to spy on users is just plain wrong.
The data is handed over because a sovereign nation issued a legally binding court order. Google hands over data when required to do so by court order, otherwise it doesn't.
You can't pay Google for private information unless you have a court order, and Google is compelled to hand over data whether or not the feds can pay. The data is not being sold. Google is only being paid for resources it is already legally obligated to spend.
Indeed. I think it is somewhat analogous to the US Army blocking access to the Guardian's website because of the classification of the Snowden leaked documents hosted there.
Everything follows in a logical order when viewed from one perspective, but seen from the perspective of a normal person who cares less about internal procedures and more about general governance it is obvious the emperor has no clothes.
If the government wanted to have a room in an office building for a long period of time to spy on a company in the sam building it is reasonable to charge rent & for utilities. I don't see how this is different?
(I agree in principle that warrantless spying is wrong. But if a warrant is issued I certainly don't see why a company shouldn't charge for their resource use)
The problem I see is, all this are asked to be kept secret. How much money the Government gives the Telcos, ISPs and websites like Google, Facebook etc. for monitoring people and how much these people charge etc. are being kept secret.
You create a ghost. Create fear of the ghost. Tell people that only you can protect them from the ghost. But you don't tell them how they plan to protect them from the ghost, nor are you willing to disclose how much you spend to protect people from this ghost.
Yes. I think, the whole dialogue on terrorism should move away from the abstract concept called 'terrorism'. Any disgruntled group which sees itself as the underdog against a very powerful entity will resort to terrorism. You cannot wipe out terrorism from the face of the earth, like you cannot wipe out car accidents. The governments the world over are asking for enormous powers, selling us the dream that there will not be one innocent life lost because of another terrorist attack. They are dumbing down the actual issues behind these problems.
People should realize that only bringing focus to the real issues and not blanket regulations and restrictions on freedom is going to have some real effect.
Why don't governments create the new laws or policies time bound and specific to particular issues. If they see Al Queda activity in US, make it public. Release information on the organizations. People behind these organizations, the people helping to fund these organizations. Create embargoes on countries and organizations funding these organizations. And do them more effective and open manner than how it is done now.
Fill the media with real issues and educate people who sympathize with terrorist organizations. Give a platform for these people to redress their grievances. Create more opportunities for leaders of supposedly 'terrorist' organizations and to have more debate and dialogue with others.
Surveillance by government is the same way. Police and three-letter agencies are using engineer time, bandwidth, and potentially rack space of service providers complying with warrants. They compensate providers for those resources.
Similarly, if the police kick down an apartment door, they're supposed to compensate the landlord for the cost of a new door. If your municipal police department wanted to wiretap your cell phone, they would have to pay Verizon/AT&T/whatever a monthly fee just like you do.