[nemothekid]

>With a private entity, that's not the case.

Ah, so if the government had just contracted out the NSA's services and had them act as a private corporation rather than have the NSA be a government entity, then their actions would have been 100% a-ok.

[toyg]

No, because the money would still come from "everyone", and the government would still be "doing" something.

If the NSA was a completely privately-owned corporation without any ties to the government, yeah, the judgement would be different (likely still negative, since no private actor can legally compromise networks like they do).