truth so frank it's super classified!

[coderman]

paraphrasing: "we pay them with dirt and tech"
 (correspondingly: zero stones; ZERO CRATES!!!)

"
What do Third Parties .. want from us?

Generally speaking, our Third Party partners want access to our
technology... In exchange for their providing unique accesses, ... we
provide them with technical solutions (e.g., hardware, software)
and/or access to related technology.
"
 - http://cryptome.org/2014/03/nsa-third-parties.pdf


also choice:
"
Are our foreign intelligence relationships usually insulated from
short-term political ups and downs...?

For a variety of reasons, our intelligence relationships are rarely
disrupted by foreign political perturbations, foreign or _domestic_.
First we are helping our partners [... with intelligence]. Second, in
many of our foreign partners' capitals, few senior officials outside
of their defense-intelligence apparatus are witting to any SIGINT
connection to U.S./NSA.
"