Thanks A Lot, NSA

Becky Akers
Jun. 11, 2015

The "Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank" predicted "nearly two years ago [that] losses for the cloud computing sector" would range between $22 billion and $35 billion, thanks to the NSA's espionage. Actually, neither the tankers nor the journalists reporting this story phrase it that way: they instead blame "revelations in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden."

At any rate, the ITIF has revised its estimate of those losses upwards--so far upwards that "it now appears impossible to quantify the economic damage." That's because the NSA hasn’t ruined just cloud computing but the "entire [tech] sector."

"When historians write about this period in U.S. history it could very well be that one of the themes will be how the United States lost its global technology leadership to other nations," the study's authors, Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn, speculated.

Here's hoping the NSA’s evil spurs the techies to rally behind freedom and the agency’s abolition. Alas, it hasn't so affected the study's authors, who "concluded" that "The U.S. government will need to set a new course that balances economic interests with national security interests." Right. And the U.S. government needs to set a new course where it doesn't steal our money, slaughter folks worldwide, and lie about both, but I doubt it will.