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I wonder if eventually NSA will get massive layoffs because much of what they'd do would be redundant, and for 80 percent of the stuff they want they could just ask/hack Google. The other 20 percent employees will remain for users of Google competitors and more targeted spying. So essentially 80 percent of NSA's "intelligence" would be outsourced to Google (for free).

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Why would the NSA relinquish power? Layoffs imply a lack of income, a problem the NSA, as a government program, doesn't have to worry about.

If those 80% were redundant, why not repurpose them to dig a little deeper into other activities?

How does NSA or other government programs not have to worry about lack of income?

1) Government programs have been temporarily and/or permanently shutdown by minority parties in the past.

2) US Government exists at the leisure of the people within its borders.

If the agency in question can sufficiently co-opt/coerce the government, they don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

Certainly. It is up to the people that allow the government to persist to surveil the activities of that government to ensure that it is operating within the bounds they have permitted.

Nope. The fact that they have to be a bit fuzzy with their accounting to cover up the interesting programs means it is near impossible to tell who is sitting idle and useless, and who is super critical but on a project that intentionally is described as idle and useless.

Google was hacked by the NSA years ago according to the Snowden leaks: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-24751821

> they could just ask/hack Google

You mean "buy from".

This is Google's core business. And I don't consider the NSA more creepy than Google's other customers.

Surely they don't need to buy it, surely they can request it under the guise of national security.

"request" haha

> You mean "buy from".

> This is Google's core business. And I don't consider the NSA more creepy than Google's other customers.

Google's core business is keeping personal data and using it to target ads that advertisers pay Google to show, not providing that personal data to paying customers. Selling the data would be giving away the prime competitive edge Google has, which lies in selling services (primarily advertising) where Google has a competitive edge because of its unique access to the data.

So, unless the NSA wants Google to show you ads rather than wanting detailed information on you, what they would be looking for would not be what Google's core business involves selling.

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