ITIF: Impact of Surveillance Programs on US Tech Companies Greater Than Initial Estimates

initial $35 billion estimate, ITIF said in a news release Tuesday. That affected the cloud computing sector and the industry as a whole, ITIF said. In a report released Tuesday, ITIF cataloged a “wide range of specific examples of the economic harm that has been done to U.S. businesses as a result of unreformed government surveillance practices,” and “proposes a series of reforms designed to improve security, protect transparency, and increase cooperation and accountability in the global technology ecosystem,” the release said. “The U.S. government’s failure to meaningfully reform its surveillance practices has taken a serious economic toll on the U.S. tech sector and the total cost continues to grow each day,” said ITIF Vice President Daniel Castro, who co-wrote the report. “Foreign customers are increasingly shunning U.S. companies, and governments around the world are using U.S. surveillance as an excuse to enact a new wave of protectionist policies,” which is bad for U.S. companies, workers and the economy as a whole, Castro said. “Now that Congress has passed the USA Freedom Act, it is imperative that it turn its attention to reforming the digital surveillance activities that continue to impact our nation’s competitiveness,” he said. In its report, ITIF recommended policymakers “level the playing field for the U.S. tech sector” by implementing reforms like transparency about surveillance practices, opposing government efforts to weaken encryption or place backdoors in software, strengthening mutual legal assistance treaties with other nations, and combating anti-competitive practices by other nations, the release said. “Congress must decide how many American jobs it is willing to sacrifice in pursuit of intelligence gathering and find a better balance between economic interests and national security interests,” Castro said.