Americans Disapprove of Government Surveillance Programs | Hacker News Reader

Americans Disapprove of Government Surveillance Programs

gallup.com

149 pointsDamnYuppie49 comments

This poll is almost the exact opposite of the one Pew Research did, http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-phone-tracking-as-acceptable-anti-terror-tactic/.

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> There are significant partisan differences in views of the government's program to obtain call logs and Internet communication. Democrats are more likely to approve, by 49% to 40%. Independents (34% vs. 56%) and Republicans (32% to 63%) are much more likely to disapprove than approve.

It's too bad they didn't bother to separate "technologically clueless" from the "technologically clueful", which would probably speak volumes.

That's a fruitless way of approaching the problem. It plays into the political divides of "us" vs "them." By trying to establish groups of people as "clueless" about a topic, it just reinforces the feelings of, "they just don't get it" or "they wouldn't think that if they just knew better." All sides of an issue believe exactly that.

This reminds me to read a book that talks about this: "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion," by Jonathan Haidt. Maybe someone else has read it and can comment.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/01/146474609/why-we-fight-the-psy..., http://www.amazon.com/The-Righteous-Mind-Politics-Religion/d...

I'd imagine technologically clueless people have more of an expectation of privacy from internet communications than technologically clueful people that know that know that random sysadmins at dozens of companies have access to your data.

I'm curious what HN users would ask as a qualifier to being technologically knowledgeable. What would the ideal question for that be?

How about: arrange these MS Windows version numbers in chronological order: 3, 7, 8, 95, 98, 2000.

I wouldn't be surprised if some youngsters these days weren't aware that there'd been a Windows 3, while still being technologically savvy generally. Possibly 95 as well, although they could probably still get the order right just based on the pattern at that point.

Judging by the last few days, it would probably have more to do with politics than technology.

How about occupation? I'm guessing people employed in IT or STEM fields are more likely to be technologically knowledgeable.

Can the internet fit in a small box?

No, but it will fit in an oil tanker[1]

[1]: http://what-if.xkcd.com/23/ (second from the last answer)

No, it's a series of tubes. You know, tubes.

And yet, this Pew Research poll from two days ago:

> "Overall, 56 percent of Americans consider the NSA’s accessing of telephone call records of millions of Americans through secret court orders “acceptable,” while 41 percent call the practice “unacceptable.”" [1]

The Pew question only specifies phone data monitoring, while the Gallup question mentions both phone and internet data. I'm sure the poll-question-phrasing-savvy can provide some more insight on the differences.

How much of the difference can be attributed to people's minds changing in response to further revelations, the quality of the government's response, the opinions of their peers, etc?

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-suppor...

Well we've always known that both the wording and sequence of questions can affect poll results. I don't know by how much exactly but the effect has been seen to be significant enough to mislead pundits on seemingly every side of a given issue until right before an election.

This summary has been somewhat debunked:

http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-poll-you-are-readi...

The key takeaway is this: "Twenty-one percent of Americans disapprove of the government's actions, but say there could be circumstances in which it would be right for the government to carry out such a program, yielding a combined total of 58% of all Americans who either approve or could theoretically approve under certain circumstances."

I'd bet there are a lot of people in the administration who dislike the idea of surveillance in general, but approve of surveillance in this particular case because of the specifics of the situation. Not saying the belief is justified, but rather that this is always how such beliefs are justified. See the movie The Siege.

And if you look at poll data from similar scandals in 2006, a very healthy (about half) of people who objected now, when a Democrat is in charge, thought it was awesome then, and vice versa.

If you were an intelligence professional, how could you not look at this and shrug? Is there really a message from the public when about half the people who seem to care apparently care only for the political hay they can make of it, and about half the rest just don't know enough to know whether they approve or not?

To me, that's a real negative of the secrecy -- it sets up low-information scenarios where the public can't have a real opinion, and so is easily discounted by insiders, leading to yet more secrecy and potential abuses.

Well, nothing demonstrates that they're the same people. Strictly, there could be a chunk of the populace that shifts their allegiance to whoever is more spy-happy.

... don't think that's actually the case, though.

Over the past few years every company listed in the Prism scandal has done everything possible to ink information out of us, including the information we were giving them by using their service. It seems to me like over the past decade or so more of these companies applications have been developed around the information gathering protocol. Back in 09 when I left facebook it was because at the time I was getting friended by people that were just random from my neighborhood and it sorta hit me that I bet facebook could pin point my childhood address by looking at my friends and other data. Its all creepy. But its all worth a ton of money to the government. In my opinion, facebook or google wouldn't have the value it has today without the information sharing. I thought that was a given before this scandal broke out.

My point is that I am afraid that the big tech companies were acting as robots for the government and relying on developing technology around the surveillance program, rather than innovation.

A more important question is "How passionately do you disapprove?"

For example, even though most Americans believe in tougher gun restrictions, it's not a high priority in how they vote. That meant politicians weren't going to spend any of their political capital fighting for that issue.

I suspect privacy isn't a major voting issue with many Americans, so this number is probably even weaker in terms of swaying politicians. It's politically easier for a politician to be strong on security with spying than to stand up for privacy and later have it revealed that information about an attack could have been known through these spying methods.

Edit: topic clarification and paragraph structure.

to speculate a bit, the 49% of democrats who approve must be viewing this whole kerfuffle through the partisan lens that it's an attack on the administration, rather than as an attack on the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 apparatus that, at least in part, predate the current administration.

I think the converse is true, and the partisan effect is increasing disapproval because of conservatives who want to believe that the Obama government is inept and overreaching.

Either way, not a great discussion to have on HN.

> democrats who approve must be viewing this whole kerfuffle through the partisan lens that it's an attack on the administration

Maybe. Maybe the poll sucks, maybe asking the questions differently would've made a difference, maybe taking the poll later would've changed the results. Maybe there's a characteristic difference in thought between people who tend to vote democratic and the other groups. Maybe democrats tend to trust that the Obama administration isn't making use of this program in a way that directly or deliberately targets American citizens. Maybe republicans view the program through a partisan lens, viewing it as yet another totalitarian act on the part of Obama, rather than a continuation of post-9/11 national security policy from the Bush years.

There's plenty of possible explanations, and very limited data.

Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

37% approve, which seems pretty high. I wonder what the response would have been if it the question wasn't phrased as "the government obtained records", but as "the government obtained your records".

This is why a majority of polls are absolutely useless, you can get the answers you want by asking the questions in certain ways.

Also, what people say they'd do and what they actually do are two completely different things. You could ask people if they are sick of hearing about a tabloid scandal thats been running in the press for a few weeks and they'll say they are, yet any publication that runs the story has their circulation numbers go up.

As the saying goes: "Lies, damned lies, and statistics".

The problem with these polls is the phrasing. For example:

Are you comfortable with the NSA listening in on private phone calls and reading private emails in order to prevent terrorism?

Are you comfortable with the NSA listening in on your private phone calls and reading your private emails in order to prevent terrorism?

People have a strong bias towards thinking that it wouldn't happen to them, but, as we all know, it has to happen to someone.

"listening in on your private phone calls"

I thought the programs that were in the news had nothing to do with listening in on phone calls. This poll also has nothing to do with the question of listening to phone calls.

Listening on a call and collecting metadata are two extremely different things. I'm personally opposed to both but they are miles apart from each other and shouldn't be confused.

You're right, that part is incorrectly phrased, but it's also not really the point. Change "listening in on" to "collecting metadata about" if you like. It's still the same problem.

What does it matter if "most Americans" disapprove, from any standpoint? It doesn't mean they won't vote in the same bastards that did this to us in the first place. And, philosophically, "A lynch mob is majority rule stripped of its fancy trappings and its facade of respectability." If 90% of Americans said they're ok with the programs, would that make it alright to violate the rights of the other 10%?

To me it's significant that 37% of Americans support a program that's undoubtedly unconstitutional. I wonder how much the poll participants actually knew about PRISM. Either they support it out of ignorance or for political reasons -- or there's widespread, fundamental misunderstanding of the federal Constitution.

I'd take this further and do a poll of people to find out how many people agree with individual provisions of the Constitution. Like literally show people one clause/section at a time, have them read it and ask them what parts they agree and disagree with.

Some experiments have been performed, and the results are not pretty:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/when-congress-voted...

The House killed Watt's amendment [the literal text of the Fourth Amendment] by nearly a 3-1 margin.

Very surprised that Democrats would be in favor... perhaps because it's a Democrat president in office that's presiding over these programs? I can't think of any other rational reason.

It's possible, but it's probably more indirect. E.g. the Democratic leadership is playing damage control, and the media that panders to Democrats plays along, so the Democratic public see the played-down version in the media they watch.

The title of this article is wrong. That is why you should be scared.

37% Approve. 57% Disapprove. 10% Don't care.

That means only 20% more disapprove than approve. 10% of people are blissfully ignorant. 37% are deliberately ignorant. 57% are actually thinking.

You call those good numbers? I call that: fucked.

We are only 7% stronger than the blissfully and deliberately ignorant.

Why do you assume people who disagree with you are "deliberately ignorant"? Maybe they feel that way because they know know more than you.

No.

They feel that way because they believe in the ability of a government to protect them, without making any mistakes.

I would give them credit for thinking this way, the idea that they could be protected, or that it's good.

What makes them stupid is thinking such a system is so infallible that it wont end up putting them behind bars one day because of a clerical error.

And you know this... how?

I would venture to guess on this issue those voting in favor of PRISM and such programs are not more informed. They are most likely unaware of the consequences of such programs and what it means about our government and how they view their constituents and their power.

>I would venture to guess on this issue those voting in favor of PRISM and such programs are not more informed.

I'm pretty sure they would guess the same about you.

Public opinion is a double edged sword. Be careful when you grasp onto it. One terrorist attack and it swings back the other way in a hurry. If you truly believe that these programs violate the fourth amendment, then it doesn't matter what the majority thinks, your individual rights are protected from the majority by the constitution.

I guess what I find somewhat disappointing is that "most Americans" in this context means 53%.

I agree I would have thought well over 70% would have found this horrific. Yet we have been "wussified" so much that many people feel anything that "keeps them safe" is worth it. So the terror propaganda has worked.....

And we have all their names.

According to Gallup, Mitt Romney is also the current president.

So basically, whatever party is in power tends to get a pass for its bad behavior... SSND...

i'm surprised at the democrat vs. republican split on this. i would have guessed the opposite result.

This is enough to make me suspicious of the poll numbers. This has a very partisan slant. The Democrats are, to a small extent, rallying around a Democratic president, while Republican respondents are doing the opposite. The numbers would likely be flipped around, had this NSA scandal been exposed during the previous (Republican) president's administration.

It took a poll to figure this out?

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