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Comment by cklaus | Hacker News Reader

It depends on the question asked... if you ask people whether he did the right thing by exposing the surveillance, 55% yes.

another poll in favor of snowden: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/01/edward-snowden-supp...

if you ask them if he should stand trial, they also agree with that. tweaking the poll question can make a significant difference.

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One could just pick defendants at random from the general population and get most Americans to vote for a trial. We are jealous, vindictive bastards.

Or a country that believes in the rule of law above other things.

You can simultaneously believe that what someone did was the right thing and think that they still need to stand trial. Now, believing those two and not thinking some sort of reform is necessary might be a harder position to hold.

If we're going to go by the rule of law, let's start with the offenders in this administration, the last administration, and in the intelligence and law enforcement community.

  It depends on the question asked.

Exactly. Subtle changes in the wording can bring about substantial differences in the poll outcome. Nuances are often important (and too often overlooked, imho).

Makes me think of... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll

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