I wouldn't event say it was a cost issue. It was much more security through fences. When hardly any systems were connected together it was far more difficult for the non-authorities to access information, especially at the scale we are seeing today. You really needed to be able to infiltrate multiple systems simultaneously to get the kind of access you can now with a simple internet connection.

It makes the argument extremely ignorant when you realize we didn't have this problem in the past because it was just too difficult.