The thought that your tax dollars are going to pay for some bloated overpriced inefficient software solution is unpleasant. For example, according to Binney and co. ThinThread was small, fast, efficient and cost-effective, but some outside contractors with connections inside the agency had other ideas. Where the NSA decision-makers are personally invested in these contractors, similar to how Carlyle Group with its politician clients owns most of Booz Allen, it's tempting to speculate on the motivations of the agency to go for the less efficient, less robust, more expensive solutions (more maintenance and support contracts... cha ching). But, who knows... it's all top secret.

It's like when people pointed out the financial ties between certain politicians and companies that produced expensive airport body scanners, which the government promptly purchased after the t`ism scare tactics had cast a spell over people making them accept that anything and everything was "necessary".