We have absolutely no idea what all of their sources of funding are, and it probably doesn't matter anyway: with total information awareness comes total power, because there is no person on Earth that couldn't potentially be blackmailed. A global network of powerful people who desire to protect their dirty secrets could easily be a source of revenue far in excess of some official budget.

Besides, once this infrastructure is fully rolled out, who knows how many people they will really need to employ. As you may have noticed, powerful technological advances largely have a habit of destroying jobs, not creating them.

-wendell

hivewallet.com | twitter.com/hivewallet | pgp: B7179FA88C498718

On Jan 1, 2014, at 5:52 AM, Bruce Chastain wrote:

> I think I've seen somewhere that the NSA budget is somewhere over 10 billion usd a year, without that I don't think they would exist. Maybe a few would be able to use their skills to run shady business, but in large the organization itself would dissolve. When the people stop getting their pay checks, I don't think they'll keep coming in the office anymore. And I don't think 99.99% of the nsa as an org has the business chops to make it without straight up stealing money from the people. I'm not suggesting it's easy or even possible, I'm only saying that until it happens, I don't see any way of really "winning".
>
> That makes me think of the one small positive thing in this whole situation, we have the advantage that we are working because we really believe in what we are doing, 99% of the folks working over at the nsa, they just want a easy life with a fat pay check. If that pay drys up, their gone.