So is the increasingly (to use a semi-word that is only rarely usable) tentacular NSA a necessary evil of the digital age, or a cancerous money sink born from the colossal intelligence competition of the Cold War?
At the 2008 Singularity Summit, Marshall Brain, author of "Robotic Nation,"described the predictable, potentially devastating effects of "second intelligence" competition in the marketplace.
For love of domination we must substitute equality; for love of victory we must substitute justice; for brutality we must substitute intelligence; for competition we must substitute co-operation.
First, all things being equal, consumers will buy the best product at the lowest possible price at all times, and that intelligence fosters competition, which in turn lowers consumer prices.
To gather intelligence about its competition, Uber bought information about its main rival, Lyft, from Unroll.me.me
Buyers often approach acquisition candidates as a way of gathering intelligence about the competition and identifying talent.
"We've got to ask how much competitive intelligence we divulge to our competition".
At the same time, officials say, a widely perceived need to maintain some competition among intelligence agencies and produce the best analytical judgments, as well as concern about disrupting important intelligence work now under way, might mitigate against a sweeping overhaul.
The House intelligence committee proposal represents competition to a different bill introduced last fall by privacy advocates in the Senate and House judiciary committees known as the USA Freedom Act.
The revolutions in communications technologies, the Internet and social media, data collection and artificial intelligence have reshaped the competition between liberalism and anti-liberalism in ways that have only recently become clear, and which do not bode well for liberalism.
If you think you know your competition from intelligence gained last year, think again.
