All 3 branches of the U.S. government [3] have concluded that the NSA has gone way too far … and that mass surveillance is unnecessary.
The U.N. General Assembly agrees [4].
But one government leader backs the NSA’s Orwellian spying … former KGB officer Vladamir Putin.
Vladamir Putin (on the left, wearing multiple cameras and a striped shirt) during Ronald Reagan’s visit to the Soviet Union
It is obvious that the former Soviet uber-spy’s [5] endorsement is ironic. But there is a second potential explanation.
Putin also has a current net worth alleged to be between $40 billion [6] and $70 billion [7], and a palace to rival the old monarchs of France [8].
The real purpose of mass surveillance is economic advantage, diplomatic manipulation, and social control [9].
The multi-billionaire – whether commie or capitalist – may just want to maintian control and increase his wealth.
Of course, top experts say that mass spying by the NSA makes the Internet more vulnerable to bad guys [10].
And huge chunks of North American Internet traffic have flowed to Russia [11] and other strange places recently:
Have NSA shenanigans helped Mr. Putin by weakening the security of the web to the point where he can grab our data? Maybe that’s one reason he likes it.
Postscript: Given that the American economy has gone from capitalism to socialism [12], and that the U.S. used communist torture techniques specifically aimed at [13] extracting false confessions, it has become admittedly difficult to identify the players from the baseball roster these days.