66% Believe Obama Administration 'Right' to Analyze and Collect Internet Data | Hacker News Reader

66% Believe Obama Administration 'Right' to Analyze and Collect Internet Data

weeklystandard.com

10 points1337biz9 comments

Hold up one second, if you click on the pdf in the article http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2013/images/06/17/rel7a.pdf and turn to page 5, you see "Government surveillance of U.S. citizens" - 61% Disapprove, 35% Approve, and 4% no opinion.

Proving once again that people don't know what they think. I remember reading somewhere that researchers were able to phrase questions on a survey such that participants gave opposite answers to the same effective question (too bad I can't seem to find that article on google).

For the most part, people do know what they think. On the other hand, some, less honest, pollsters spend quite a lot of time getting folks to answer the way they want from eliminating information or being hyper-techincal with the questions.

If you're honest with yourself and ask the right questions, people will tell you what they think. It might not be as logical as you want, but we live in a fuzzy world.

Well the article title is specific to the question about surveillance of non US persons but worded to imply all cases.

In other words, click bait or agenda.

Well look at the questions:

"And for the past few years the Obama administration has reportedly been gathering and analyzing information from major internet companies about audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails and documents involving people in other countries in an attempt to locate suspected terrorists. The government reportedly does not target internet usage by U.S. citizens and if such data is collected, it is kept under strict controls. Do you think the Obama administration was right or wrong in gathering and analyzing that internet data?"

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling: Government surveillance of U.S. citizens:"

The question for government surveillance is a lot more strait forward. The other has a paragraph and has buzz words .

What's the point in survey's of people that may or may not be a fair representation of the populace? The point is it is against the constitution and anyone who spends 10 minute reading the document will realize is against the law (likely forming all the disapprovals).

Also the discrepancy in this survey (already pointed out in another post) makes this survey pretty questionable.

This poll is all over the place, which reflects the fact that this issue is currently stuck in a weird place. The fact is that these programs are in direct opposition with what most people believed were American ideals, and are probably unconstitutional. However, Obama's liberal base is pretty rabid and will basically stick with him regardless of what he does, and Republicans have a natural inclination toward strong defense. Since NSA has associated these programs with terrorism (although they go far beyond that), Republicans can't come out strongly against them either. I will hand it to Obama's political strategists: they have spun this in a way that their opposition cannot meaningfully oppose them without betraying their own ideals.

Case in point, Question 17:

"Do you think the Obama administration has gone too far, has been about right, or has not gone far enough in restricting people's civil liberties in order to fight terrorism?"

Too far 43% | About right 38% | Not far enough 17% | No opinion 1%

55% say it's either "not far enough" or "about right" - while the same report shows that 61% disapprove of "Government surveillance of American citizens". The same question asked two different ways yielded vastly different responses. The media (the majority of whom are Obama supporters) have managed to confuse the public and make this less about the fact that a modern KGB has been built, and more about whether or not people believe that Obama has good intentions with these programs.

As usual in matters of politics, Yes, Minister (specifically, Yes, Prime Minister) got in there and explained it all decades ago:

http://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA?t=22s

100% of opinions can be manufactured. Polls lie.

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