Is it worth it?

In Bruce Shneier's TED talk from 2011, he comments that the critical question on security is "is the tradeoff worth it?". In the whole NSA debate, there has been much written and commented about the programmes, the programmes' impact on individuals' rights to privacy (both American and foreign citizens) and the ethics around such a programme.

However, the question on whether the NSA programme's trade-offs were actually worth it - as in a full cost benefit analysis, has only been tangentially discussed. In this regard, a paper by Mueller and Stewart, provides a good overview of the cost benefit analysis. Even, in the absense of numerical values, the benefits provided by the programme are actually quite low.

The paper is a vital discussion that has, so far been poorly addressed. More than anything else - surely a programme that costs billions, but has very little identifiable benefits, should be seen as fruitless expenditure. Given the US's current political stances on budget defecit - it almost seems like cutting the NSA programmes themselves will address the gap!