Oh, What a Big Surprise

President Barack Obama recently stated the United States was not taking sides as Egypt's crisis came to a head with the military overthrow of the democratically elected president.

But a review of dozens of US federal government documents shows Washington has quietly funded senior Egyptian opposition figures who called for toppling of the country's now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi.

[...]

Activists bankrolled by the programme include an exiled Egyptian police officer who plotted the violent overthrow of the Morsi government, an anti-Islamist politician who advocated closing mosques and dragging preachers out by force, as well as a coterie of opposition politicians who pushed for the ouster of the country's first democratically elected leader, government documents show.

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, interviews, and public records reveal Washington's "democracy assistance" may have violated Egyptian law, which prohibits foreign political funding.

  alJazeera

I’m sure that’ll scare us.

It may also have broken US government regulations that ban the use of taxpayers' money to fund foreign politicians, or finance subversive activities that target democratically elected governments.

Even less of a problem.

And, by the way, I heard on NPR yesterday that those companies that are handing over all our metadata to the NSA are getting paid for doing so (that would be with OUR tax dollars, you understand). All except Facebook, which is giving the information free of charge.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Here's an article in RT on the pay for snooping scheme.