I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this and not believed by hardly anyone on this crowd so I'll keep it short and without evidence, only testimony:
I was a US intelligence officer for some time. Not woth NSA, but did a lot of work with NSA, CIA, and the Bureau. The involvement between the US intelligence agencies and FAANG (in terms of the rough narrative involved) is a lot less impressive and threatening than people here suppose. The reality is that the US government hires some smart people to solve hard problems. When the problems get harder, they higher more smart people. The costs arent completely opaque, either. So at the end of the FY the costs get seen by elected officials and actions get justified and legally scrutinized. As it turns out, the US government is a lot less interested in spying on people who aren't threats to the state, and the intelligence agencies have to be judicial in who they target, because there are limited resources for such activities.
The US intelligence service is also a bureaucracy, and people seem to forget that. Just because something is "secret" doesn't mean it is romantic or Bornesque.
Context: I have not held a TS clearance or been employed with the US government nor contractor for a little over 3 years.
The US intelligence service is also a bureaucracy, and people seem to forget that. Just because something is "secret" doesn't mean it is romantic or Bornesque.
Context: I have not held a TS clearance or been employed with the US government nor contractor for a little over 3 years.