NSA scandal shakes Americans’ trust in government

NSA scandal shakes Americans’ trust in government

News Link  •  Surveillance


08-02-2013 
• 
Rare.US 

On Wednesday, the Obama
administration released several newly declassified intelligence documents in a
damage control attempt over the growing NSA snooping scandal. On the same day,
the Guardian reported on the NSA tool XKeyscore,
which can track everything people do online, including emails, Facebook
activity, online chats and browser histories. The White House just can’t keep
ahead of the bad news.

The administration maintains that
these programs are necessary for the fight against terrorism, but the American
people are not convinced. A new survey released by the Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press
finds that 56% of Americans believe that
“federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and internet
data the government is collecting as part of its anti-terrorism efforts.” And
for the first time in the 10 year history of this poll, more people (47%) say the
government has gone too far in restricting civil liberties than those who say
it has not gone far enough to protect the country (35%).

This decisive change in attitude
crosses the political spectrum. Republicans, Democrats and Independents have
all seen double-digit shifts towards concern for liberty over security between
October 2010 and July 2013. The shift is most pronounced among Tea Party
members; in 2010 only a fifth of them believed the government had gone too far
in restricting liberties, while 63% believed it should do more. In the new survey, the number of Tea
Partiers concerned with government intrusion jumped to 55%, while those saying
the state should keep ramping things up dropped more than half. The only group
that showed no significant change in attitude was moderate to conservative Democrats,
though the more interesting question is how the Pew Center located any members
of this nearly extinct species.

 

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