Senator probes how NSA spying hurts profits

WASHINGTON -- Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden is investigating the economic harm he said is being caused by the National Security Agency's surveillance methods.

Wyden is using his perch as the panel's chairman to broaden his attack on the agency's practices, he said Monday in an interview.

"Nobody has looked at it from an economic standpoint, purely economics, dollars and cents," said Wyden, D-Ore. "If a foreign enemy had inflicted the damage on the American economy -- these cutting-edge, innovative companies -- that the overreaching by the NSA surveillance brigade had done, people would be up in arms all over the United States."

Companies including Yahoo and Microsoft have been waging a public-relations battle for more than a year in response to revelations of NSA spying exposed by former government contractor Edward Snowden.

U.S. technology companies may lose as much as $35 billion in the next three years from foreign customers choosing not to buy their products because of concerns they cooperate with spy programs, according to Daniel Castro. He's a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit group.

The German government announced it was ending a contract with Verizon Communications Inc. because of agency spying.

A Section on 07/15/2014

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