At 08:52 AM 8/2/96 -0700, Brock N. Meeks wrote:
On Thu, 1 Aug 1996, Ernest Hua wrote:
Louis Freeh is now asking the Congress for $2 billion to fund Digital Telephony. Yes, that is FOUR TIMES what he said it would cost the taxpayers to give up their own privacy. Score one for the cynics who said $500 million was not enough.
I broke the story about how much Digital Telephony would *really* cost in CyberWire Dispatch more than two years ago. The price tag in my piece: "... at least $2 billion..." In that Dispatch I wrote that the Clinton White House had made the decision to support the bill based on a flawed cost/benefit analysis study the FBI had done.
Which should remind us... While the costs are going up, so far undetermined is the "benefits" that are supposed to accrue from this bugging ability. How many crimes, approximately, are going to be solved or prevented by the expenditure of this $2 billion dollars? One hundred? A thousand? Even if it were 10,000, that would still be $200,000 per crime. Is there no cheaper way to prevent those crimes? And, moreover, do we REALLY want to prevent those "crimes"? If they are attacks on an illegitimate government that is violating our rights, as far as I can see we want to see those "crimes" succeed, not fail. Let's put their feet to the fire: They should be required to show a reasonable estimate of the benefits as well as an apparently phony initial estimate of the costs. If they respond that they can't estimate the benefits, then why do they want us to incur the costs. However, the real answer is even simpler. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com