“This year’s price tag on America’s spook infrastructure comes out to a whopping $52.6 billion. This is, of course, a tremendous sum — more than double the size of the Department of Agriculture, more than triple the size of NASA; the list goes on… But, what really puts number into perspective is its average cost to each American taxpayer, or what I would call the NSA and associated agencies’ ‘rent.’ Yes, the NSA’s rent, charged to every taxpayer living under its web of surveillance, comes out to an exorbitant $574 per year. If this is the price the federal government is charging American taxpayers to have their own privacy invaded, then I say the NSA’s rent is too damn high.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-h-hanke/us-taxpayers-pay-574-per-year_b_4179368.html