So What Does it Cost for the Government to Spy On You?

It seems that the telecoms have a fee schedule in place.

AT&T, for example, imposes a $325 "activation fee" for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it. Smaller carriers Cricket and U.S. Cellular charge only about $250 per wiretap. But snoop on a Verizon customer? That costs the government $775 for the first month and $500 each month after that, according to industry disclosures made last year to Rep. Edward Markey.

I wonder if the government has to sign up for 2 years of wiretapping or they pay a penalty? Also if they wiretap an IPhone does Apple get a cut of that money. Wiretap exclusivity? The government does get a deal on reading your email though:

Meanwhile, email records like those amassed by the National Security Agency through a program revealed by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden probably were collected for free or very cheaply. Facebook says it doesn't charge the government for access. And while Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google won't say how much they charge, the American Civil Liberties Union found that email records can be turned over for as little as $25.

I'm glad we are getting a deal on email snooping to offset the cost of wiretapping us. What would be an interesting thing to do though is to have the an automatic email sent to you from Google whenever they let the NSA read your email. Just a friendly reminder that Big Brother had his eye on you.