Ride the Lightning

NSA Spying Makes Our Tech Economy Suffer

March 3, 2015

I know there is a certain "duh" reaction to the title of this post. Nonetheless, ZDNet's recent article makes it clear – crystal clear – that the actions of the NSA have had a very dark side for the American economy. The more the NSA tries to insist that American companies build in "backdoors" to allow the NSA unfettered access to data – including encrypted data – the less demand there will be for U.S. tech products.

China has now dropped Cisco, Apple, Intel and McAfee (among others) from the Chinese government's list of authorized brands. I expect other countries to make similar moves.

We are not talking about a small ding to the wallets of tech companies. Everyone seems to agree that the damage to American tech companies runs in the billions – and some call the damages "incalculable."

Cisco said it took a 19% hit in its second-quarter earnings in China amid claims that the NSA was installing backdoors and implants on its routers in transit.

And every time I hear some representative from the U.S. government attempt to explain why all these backdoors and implants are needed in spite of the widespread damage to American tech companies, I am keenly reminded of one of my favorite British words – bollocks.

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