Quote Originally Posted by jakez
LOL are you serious? They are spending what $450 billion a year on the military, $50-60/hr are you kidding me, is that it? An algithorem(sp?) is entirely possible and most likely (unless there is a better method) correct. It's what Google was INVENTED ON YEEEAARSSSS ago. No offense seriously, but you obviously are spreading a lot of misinformation in this thread.
But unlike everyone on this thread, I am apparently the only one using an ounce of logic. the 50-60/hr is a conservative estimate. It's probably a lot more.

450 Billion is for the entire military. There are thousands of programs, other than personnel, infrastructure and maintenance costs, which eats up the big part of the budget.

Just using the 50 rate, for one analyst, that's 104000 a year, including overhead costs. How many analysts would it take to monitor 1 million people? They're human, to adequately track, compile and interpret the logs would require quite a bit of time, and cost.

You can pull a load of information, but how much information does one have to sift through?

These are elements no one on this thread has even considered. It's just paranoia for the most part. It would be a fiscal waste to do to monitor 300 million people.....they'd have to pick and choose.