Most Americans Support Being Spied on by NSA

[Alan C.]

Most Americans Support Being Spied on by NSA

“A majority of Americans – 56% – say the National Security Agency’s (NSA) program tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism,” reports Pew Research Center.

A comparison with a previous poll from January 2006
highlights the fact that more Americans are now likely to support NSA
surveillance despite the huge scandal it caused for the Bush
administration. Under Bush, 47% found NSA wiretapping of Americans
unacceptable whereas just 41% find it unacceptable under Obama.

The poll also finds that whereas 61% of Democrats found
blanket NSA surveillance unacceptable under Bush, only 34% oppose it
under Obama – underscoring once again how partisanship is used to
dismantle American freedoms no matter who is in office.

The survey also reveals that just one on four Americans
are following the NSA story “very closely,” whereas the other 73% are
presumably more interested in the release of the new XBox and season 17
of Dancing With the Stars.

. . .

As Robert Gellately of Florida State University has highlighted, Germans under Hitler spied on and denounced their neighbors and friends not because they genuinely believed them to be a security threat, but because they expected to selfishly benefit from doing so, both financially, socially and psychologically via a pavlovian need to be rewarded by their masters for their obedience.

That “Good German” syndrome is very much alive and kicking amongst Americans today, most of whom seem to be completely at ease with the fact that their government is becoming tyrannical while willing to make any excuse imaginable to deny that the United States is beginning to resemble a high-tech plutocracy which treats its own citizens as the enemy.

[PatrickC]

Yes, this was Snowden's biggest fear. Which makes you wonder why he did it. Because if I had evaluated my potential disclosure in the wake of Wikileaks and Bradley Manning. I think I would have just quit my job and said, 'you know what, not a lot I can do here'... Having said all that, I wish him well of course and that he keeps safe.

[David L]

Apparently most Americans are ok with being spied on and treated as
untrustworthy by their "government". But if "we the people" are
untrustworthy, how can the people who claim to "represent us" be
trusted? By definition, they must represent our untrustworthiness.

It's not only insane but truly weird that people would trust people that don't trust them. 

[Lowe D]

I think I would have just quit my job and said, 'you know what, not a lot I can do here'...

What if you were being paid a lot?

 

 

[PatrickC]

I think I would have just quit my job and said, 'you know what, not a lot I can do here'...

What if you were being paid a lot?

Not sure I entirely understand the premise for your question Lowe.. But if I were in his position and considered all the subsequent fall out I was likely to encounter, in both the long and the short term. I think leaving my job (if that was the cause of my unhappiness) would be a very rational and healthy thing to do, despite how much they paid me.

I really admire the guys bravery and I suppose these sort of events chip away at people's belief in govt. It just seems that his potential loss of freedom was a pretty dreadful sacrifice to make.