How Much Microsoft Charges the FBI for (your) User Data

It's no mystery that government agencies compel tech companies to give them (totally legal) access to user data. It's also pretty well known that the tech companies charge the government for the trouble. We've just never really known how much—until now.

Long story short, Microsoft charges the FBI (read: taxpayers) hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for access to information about you. And their rates are on the rise. The Syrian Electronic Army says it hacked into the FBI's super-secret Digital Intercept Technology Unit (DITU), where they found the actual invoices from Microsoft detailing how much each request for data cost.

An invoice from December 2012 totals $145,100 which boils down to $100 per request.

How Much Microsoft Charges the FBI for (your) User Data

Microsoft professes to be 'angry' and surprised that their data is being harvested without them being aware. Actually, it is most likely that they are angry because they are not getting paid for the data taken by the NSA..?!?

With the new awareness that the FBI, the IRS, and now the US Navy collecting records on Americans, it looks like US citizens must push to reassert their rights... This is now happening on a Global scale, so we know what growth business to be in....

It is now obvious why Snowden is "no hero" to Bill Gates.
Bill Gates: Snowden is No Hero

There ought to be a class action lawsuit filed against Bill.

$100 a request is quite cheap given how long the request could take to do and the actual charging will stop some bored cop from asking to look at his ex-wifes hotmail account as there will be a charge for which some bean counter will want to see the paperwork

reply to post by R_Clark


Criminal Just-Us System.


Who is Us?
Genesis 3:22


Fortunately I'm not of this world nor am I in it.
Ask all the people that know me. lol

reply to post by R_Clark


We don't know if it's real or fake but I agree with the article that the numbers at least appear to be in the realm of plausibility even if thy haven't been confirmed. Let me guess, is Microsoft's comment on this "no comment"?

The numbers of requests are relatively small. The NSA on the other hand is hoovering up information on everybody. Their tactic was different. They seemed to apply some bullying tactics to corporations like Qwest who didn't want to play ball with them, but if you did play ball by performing illegal wiretapping for them, your firm could get lucrative government contracts (which isn't as easy to trace down as payment as these invoices).

Former Qwest CEO says refusal to comply with NSA spying landed him in jail

Nacchio told The Wall Street Journal that the NSA set up a meeting with him in February 2001 wherein he believed they would discuss potential government contracts. But he says the NSA instead asked him for permission to surveil Qwest customers.

He says he refused to cooperate based on advice from his lawyers that such an action would be illegal, as the NSA would not go through the normal process of asking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a subpoena. About this time, he says the company’s ability to win unrelated government contracts - something it did not have trouble with before the NSA meeting - slowed significantly.

It took until 2007 before Nacchio was convicted of insider trading. Prosecutors claim he was guilty of selling off Qwest stock in early 2001, not long before the company went through financial ills. Nevertheless, he claimed in court documents that he was still confident in the firm’s ability to win government contracts.

Nacchio believes his conviction was in retaliation for his refusal to play ball with legally dubious NSA spying requests.

Maxatoria
$100 a request is quite cheap given how long the request could take to do

Maybe that's why they doubled it to $200?

edit on 21-3-2014 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

reply to post by R_Clark


Well dam. I like pork and I'd be happy to give the FBI ongoing reports on myself for $100 per month.

How do we get on that gravy train?


F&S

reply to post by soficrow


Right on, sofi, we need to band together and demand a cut of the profits that data mining on us without permission and in blatant disregard of our constitutional rights, we are being exploited, by the private interest corruption and the government corruption.

We has been exploited for too long and is about darn time we get our fair share of the profits.

reply to post by soficrow


Damn, we should start a bidding war with the FBI...I offer my data direct for $80 per request...big savings of tax dollars over what Microsoft charges.

Who's in...

Des