Most Americans back NSA tracking phone records, prioritize probes over privacy

[IDemo]

Source: Washington Post

A large majority of Americans say the federal government should focus on investigating possible terrorist threats even if personal privacy is compromised, and most support the blanket tracking of telephone records in an effort to uncover terrorist activity, according to a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll.

Fully 45 percent of all Americans say the government should be able to go further than it is, saying that it should be able to monitor everyone’s online activity if doing so would prevent terrorist attacks. A slender majority, 52 percent, say no such broad-based monitoring should occur.

The new survey comes amid recent revelations of the National Security Agency’s extensive collection of telecommunications data to facilitate terrorism investigations.

Overall, 56 percent of Americans consider the NSA accessing telephone call records of millions of Americans through secret court orders “acceptable,” while 41 percent call the practice “unacceptable.” In 2006, when news broke of the NSA’s monitoring of telephone and e-mail communications without court approval, there was a closer divide on the practice — 51 percent to 47 percent.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-support-nsa-tracking-phone-records-prioritize-investigations-over-privacy/2013/06/10/51e721d6-d204-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html

---

Confusing figures, to say the least..

[MotherPetrie]

1. Obedient sheep

[KittyWampus]

23. Did you miss the words "court order"?

[MotherPetrie]

26. Nope.

[creon]

2. no great surprise.

We made a trade. Increased safety in exchange for less privacy/freedom.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Are we really safer? I don't think we are.

[thefool_wa]

8. Well, we have been doing this kind of thing since the Bush era

And Boston still happened, so...

[KittyWampus]

25. So it doesn't work unless it's 100% effective? Not agreeing with totality of surveillance happening

just pointing out that nothing is 100% effective.

[thefool_wa]

35. I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts

It was the only attempt in that same time, from within the US.

And YES, when it comes to OUR RIGHTS, if it is not 100% effective, it is a gross violation by which I cannot stand. I have every right to feel that way as these are the fundamental rights that make us Americans.

The administration and everyone in it has already been challenged to provide even a single instance of this wide spread surveillance stopping an attack, and they cannot or will not do so.

So yeah, given those circumstances, I am willing to say it was 100% IN-effective as the only terrorist plot started and executed on our soil since it began WAS NOT STOPPED. (and even more than that if you count the shootings that were really just single person non suicide terrorist acts).

[deurbano]

10. I don't think so, either. Too much "information" being gathered to adequately analyze...

as if a tsunami of MORE = Better. And all these contractors... Some people (here) are trashing Snowden as stupid, as a traitor (basically, as an all around loser)... so why did such a loser have access (at Booz Allen Hamilton) to such important secret information? This is out of control...

[creon]

59. questionable

The issue is in doubt on that question

[mike_c]

3. that's why we're supposed to have better representation in congress and the senate....

Because left to their own devices, most Americans don't give a rat's buttocks about lofty ideals like constitutional rights except as sound bites on the History Channel. Sorry, but it's true.

Baaaaaaa!

[Shivering Jemmy]

13. Why are you a Democrat?

For all I hear about the "99 percent" here...in practice it seems like a lot of DU holds a good chunk of them in real disdain.

[mike_c]

14. I'm not....

Haven't been since 2002, shortly after joining DU. Now, which conclusion will you jump to?

[Shivering Jemmy]

15. Are you a leftist of any sort?

If so then:

"For all I hear about the "99 percent" here...in practice it seems like a lot of DU holds a good chunk of them in real disdain."

[mike_c]

17. of course....

Look, the 99% is an economic inequality construct meant to illustrate the wealth gap. As a percentage of the population, it includes people who's political views deserve disdain, people who's religious beliefs are magical thinking and superstition, and people who would sell their grandmothers to pump the last barrel of oil or cut the last acre of old-growth forest.

Yes, I'd like economic justice for ALL the 99%. No, I don't care to live with a significant chunk of them.

[Shivering Jemmy]

18. Fair enough.

Not sure i get the motivation for caring. Why build a better society for people if you don't think they deserve it? But whatever.

[christx30]

42. You might not like your neighbor

with the Bush/Cheney bumper sticker, but you still wouldn't want to see his house burn down. He 's not the enemy. The bankers that trashed the economy. The unindicted 1% are.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

47. Conservatives go with heart strings and church giving

Liberals take a policy approach that may feel colder but is far more effective. There's no need to build a campfire and sing songs with the people you want your government to help. In fact, some of the people I want my government to help are people I can't stand and don't want to be around. But I still want good things to happen for them. Regarding privacy, it's for everyone--baggers, liberals, everyone. Do you see that?

[geek tragedy]

21. It works the other way--if voters don't care, politicians certainly won't nt

[mike_c]

30. I respectfully disagree, although I also understand where you'd get that impression....

"Voters" are only one of the administration's constituencies though, and not the one that matters except for one day or so every two, four, or six years. Political leadership in the U.S. does not generally answer to voters, however. Day-to-day they answer to wealth, to the security state and the MIC, to partisanship they imagine is the engine of public discourse outside the beltway-- and sometimes it is-- and to their own inbred bureaucratic apparatus. They manipulate the public debate to sway voters by election time, but in between elections they answer to a different constituency altogether. It's not so much that "if voters don't care, politicians won't" as politicians only answer to voters when they've gotten caught doing something unsavory, if then. Otherwise, the money and power arrive from elsewhere than the electorate.

My cynicism is showing.

[geek tragedy]

32. Well, if the voters aren't going to care abou that, the MIC and other tools of the powerful and

wealthy certainly won't.

[originalpckelly]

5. So this is how 1984 happens.

No one gives a shit and gladly hands over this Orwellian power to lying scumbag losers.

Because this program is really only the start, and it is quite farther down the slippery slope than going after individuals suspected of crimes without warrants.

[KarenS]

40. yes, indeed. n/t

[Fuddnik]

6. *****BREAKING*****

Most Americans are assholes.

Baaaaaa

[thefool_wa]

7. If this is you...

Then FUCK YOU!

[Ash_F]

9. Biased poll. False Premise

"Fully 45 percent of all Americans say the government should be able to go further than it is, saying that it should be able to monitor everyone’s online activity if doing so would prevent terrorist attacks."

Whats the proof this has prevented terrorist attacks? Looks to me that its done fuck all in that department.

[Kelvin Mace]

27. precisely

You know what?

Ever since I was born, Earth has not be attacked by Klingon Battle Cruisers. Therefore, I have prevented attacks by Klingons.

[Ash_F]

34. Indeed, if they had phrased the question accurately, it would have been a landslide against PRISM.

These polls are always crap. Trying to give 'both sides' of the argument to the interviewee. Never mind facts.

[LovingA2andMI]

11. Maybe the Washington Post....

Is trying to spin propaganda. Also the writer of the post above might want to take a class or three in statistics. A sample random poll must equal 100%, not 105% or in this case 52% + 45% = 97%.

[PSPS]

12. Easy to get these results with our state/corporate media propagandizing all the time.

[DCBob]

16. Not surprising... most people would rather have terrorists stopped..

than have their phone calls to Mom hidden.

[Kelvin Mace]

22. I have seen little evidence

that any of this spying has stopped any "terrorist" attacks.

Also, if the American people wish to reduce the risk of terrorist attack, they should demand their government obey the law and stop acting like a terrorist.

You know, stop torturing people, stop kidnapping people and throwing them in prison without charge, stop illegally invading countries and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, stop supporting brutal dictatorships.

Little things like that.

[DCBob]

24. You wouldnt since its not really wise for the agencies to reveal details..

about how they have stopped terrorist activity.

[Kelvin Mace]

29. How convenient

And for what reason, pray tell, should I believe government agencies with a long history of lying and lawbreaking?

[DCBob]

31. How predictible.

No amount of evidence would convince you... you mind is clearly made up.

[Kelvin Mace]

36. How many times must a man lie to your before you stop believing him?

The onus to prove what they are doing is legal lies with the government .

So far, the government has assured us that everything they do is legal and they would prove it, except it is all classified.

Gosh darn it.

The government lied about Vietnam.
The government lied about Cointelpro
The government lied about MK-Ultra
The government lied about Laos
The government lied about Cambodia
The government lied about Argentina
The government lied about Chile
The government lied about Guatemala
The government lied about Nicuaragua
The government lied about Iran-Contra
The government lied about the First Gulf War
The government lied about the Second Gulf War
The government lied about torture
The government lied about Pat Tilman
The government lied about Jessica Lynch

And this is just what I can recall off the top of my head.

Again, why do you disapprove of my skepticism of people and agencies with a long PROVEN history of lying and criminal behavior, but consider believing these people to be logically sound?

[DCBob]

38. Most that is Bush, Reagan and Nixon era stuff.

[Kelvin Mace]

61. Most, but not all

And we are dealing with the SAME agencies, despite their being being different presidents.

So, again, why do you wish to believe agencies with a long history of contempt for the law, as well as actual criminal activities up to and including attempted murder, murder by proxy, torture and torture by proxy?

Face it, the guy we voted for, the guy we believed in, turned out to be not much better than the guy he replaced, and in many ways, he is far worse.

Reality is often ugly, but ignoring reality is far, far uglier.

[L0oniX]

45. The sucessful lies ...we never know about. I am sure there are many more.

Trust is for suckers.

[neverforget]

53. What evidence?

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

49. I agree as well, the only evidence we have seen

of stopping terrorist's, were sting operations where the suspects were set up, or so ill conceived that they were bound to fail.

[Kelvin Mace]

62. Exactly!

Meanwhile, we are spying on such notorious "terrorist" groups as the Quakers, anti-death penalty advocates, Occupy protesters (who were not only spied on, but violently suppressed) and advocates for banking reform.

[Kelvin Mace]

19. At various times, the "majority" of Americans

- Supported slavery
- Opposed women's suffrage
- Supported imprisoning Japanese-Americans
- Opposed stopping Hitler
- Opposed same-sex marriage
- Opposed interracial marriage
- Opposed "mixed" religious marriages
- Supported children working in mines and factories
- Supported "re-locating" Native-Americans
- Supported George W. Bush
- Believed that Iraq had NBC weapons
- Believed that masturbation caused insanity

Americans are frequently wrong.

[Android3.14]

20. Propaganda push back

This looks like a pile of BS.
The only people I have run across (granted it is a small sample) who think the domestic surveillance program is a good idea are generally elderly Democrats or young Republicans.

[blkmusclmachine]

39. +1

Of course, they're still looking for Commies under their bed, too.

[markiv]

28. Hope and Change....Its...ITS A COOKBOOK!!!!

[markiv]

33. 1975 '3 Days of the Condor final scene, sums up the media

[NoodleyAppendage]

57. Most excellent!

Thanks for this most apropos film reference. Superb film grab for the topic at hand!

J

[markiv]

58. did you notice that Snowden went to the Guardian, not the New York Times?

maybe Snowden saw that movie, too

[blkmusclmachine]

37. Erosion of liberty will never stop. Drip, drip, drip.

And what's wrong with a little microchipping in your skin? Where do you draw the line? How scared can the government make you? How safe are you in your little jail cell?

And who were said "respondents," and who did the counting? Diebold?

TERROR LEVEL: "BROWN"

TERRA! TERRA! TERRA!

[Laelth]

41. All depends on who's running the executive branch.

The data show that Democrats don't mind Obama having the power; Republicans didn't mind Bush having the power. Highly partisan results.

On the Bill of Rights (the part of the Constitution designed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority), I think our leaders ought to listen to the minority in both cases. In other words, no spying. The people out of power always hate it.

-Laelth

[L0oniX]

43. I smell bullshit.

[SoapBox]

44. Not sheep...we just want to be safe.

AND it's a WHOLE new world out there, with terrorists taking advantage of it.

Do many of us want RESPONSIBLE monitoring? Hell yes!

Do we want this entire thing banned and just sit outside on the porch with a musket? Hell no.

Snap out of the dramatic shrieking and join 2013.

[NoodleyAppendage]

46. I wonder if you would feel the same with Romney at the helm?

Once the surveillance infrastructure is in place then it's only a matter of search terms.

[rightsideout]

52. Gawd, can you imagine?

In addition to taking away our porn he would have taken it up a notch on the surveillance and torture.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

48. Our rights are not something that a majority of persons

surveyed in a poll can take away.
But it's sad to see so many willing to give them up for an illusion of safety.
What an utter failure in education and critical thinking.

[rightsideout]

51. Bahhhhhh Bahhhhhhh

[graham4anything]

54. as I said elsewhere- What would FDR do? nt

[Malik Agar]

55. Guess what? They're MY RIGHTS...

I don't give a fuck if everybody else would rather be anal probed by the government. I have inalienable rights and several of them are listed in the Bill of Rights/Constitution and I REFUSE to give them up. To hell with anybody that tries to take them away from me.

[dkf]

56. I don't give "most Americans" the authority to take my 4th amendment rights away from me.

I could care less what they think.

[JoeyT]

60. The key paragraph from the article:

"But with a Democratic president at the helm instead of a Republican, partisan views have turned around significantly.

Sixty-nine percent of Democrats say terrorism investigations, not privacy, should be the government’s main concern, an 18-percentage-point jump from early January 2006, when the NSA activity under the George W. Bush administration was first reported. Compared with that time, Republicans’ focus on privacy has increased 22 points. "

Translation: It's ok when our guy does it and tyranny when yours does. From both sides.