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Americans Not Bothered by NSA Spying
Snap E Tom writes "According to a Washington Post poll, a majority (63%) of Americans 'said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism.' A slightly higher majority would not be bothered if the NSA collected personal calls that they made. Even though the program has received bi-partisan criticism from Congress, it appears that the public values security over privacy."
Let me guess, these polls were done by phone?
... how do you feel about that? ... you mean they can record transcripts of phone calls? ... we do use AT&T.
Washington Post: Hello, do you have a minute to take a survey?
Citizen: Of course I do!
Washington Post: Great! We were just wondering whether you're concerned with the recent news of the NSA?
Citizen: You mean the fact that they are collecting the phone call records made and recieved by each citizen of the United States?
Washington Post: Yes, probably even this very phone call right now
Citizen: I'm fuckin' pissed!
Washington Post: So you're conncerned? You know, on our last poll about the NSA, the one where we covered them routing and recording phone calls, people sure answered differently.
Citizen: Wait a second
Washington Post: Yes, probably even this very phone call right now
Citizen: Ah, I've changed my mine. I am completely fine with this acceptable form of combating terrorism. Sic Heil Bush & all that jazz. I love my country and would sacrifice every bit of privacy for it. Goodbye!
My work here is dung.
Then they'll have neither.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Benjamin Franklin must be spinning in his grave...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
...A slightly higher majority would not be bothered if the NSA collected personal calls that they made...
Just so long as they spoke dirty and pretended to be a girl
"Hi my name is Agent Sexbitch and I'm not wearing my regulation black suit. I'm a naughty agent...."
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
We're talking about Americans here. They're much better at rhetoric about how great and free they are than actually getting upset when their leaders turn out to be blatantly trampling rights enshrined in the constitution.
It's been a long time.
This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone May 11, 2006 among 502 randomly selected adults.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
"It's might be OK for the NSA to use who you call to establish close ties to a terrorist."
You just said its OK for the government to consider ALL CITIZENS as potential terrorists AT ALL TIMES.
Are you SURE thats "might be OK"?
You just threw presumprion of innocence out the window, without even realising what you did, didn't you?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Those who attempt to gain karma by trying to summarize a complex issue with a one-line quote will have have done neither.
Anyone who utters the words: "If you've done nothing wrong, then what are you afraid of?" should immediately be put on the no-fly list.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
In other news, a survey found that the majority of Americans don't understand why the rest of the world view them as dumb, mindless sheep.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Scaring Americans into giving up their privacy is really getting old. A large scale terrorism attack is still very much possible today. Mistake after mistake has shown this. It's a dog and pony show. The presentation has changed, but gaping holes still exist. Amercians somehow believe losing their rights is helping terrorism, but in reality its not. Before 9/11 terrorism was almost non-existant in America. After 9/11 it's almost non-existant. Looking at raw numbers, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of things you should be more worried about killing you than a terrorist. Statistically I'd be more worried about being killed by a shark in the US.
And I can't believe people are actually fooled into thinking somehow terrorism is a major threat. If you want to save the most amount of lives with the least amount of effort, fight obesity. It accounts for most of the top killers in America today.
But obesity isn't patriotic. You can't hang a flag outside your house supporting the war on fat.
Get a fucking clue people. Terrorism isn't a threat to your daily lives. If you actually think it is, then you've been emotionally manipulated by people who want your money and/or votes.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Okay, the NSA is just making correlations between calls. However, if any actor can be tied to Kevin Bacon in 6 steps, and any person to the President in 6 steps, doesn't this mean the NSA can tie any phone user to a terrorist at will in 6 steps or less?
"I called my auto mechanic, who called a customer, who once called a lawyer friend, who represented a terrorist. So now I'm flagged as 'communicating with a terrorist'".
Worse, the only way to weed out such 'spurious connections' is, of course, to get more detailed records of exactly who was called, and why, and what was said. So the concept is inherently flawed and can only be fixed by further privacy violations.
A.
As we all know "terrorism" is the root password to the Constitution. This question asks only about terrorism. I wonder what their answers would be if the question was:
"Do you find the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate drug use?"
or
"Do you find the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate copyright infringment?"
We all know these programs will not be used for only terrorism, but for everyday crimes. Will people care then?
Americans who have given up on caring about anything truthful being discussed in today's world are not bothered by NSA spying.
Seriously, if the NSA will not give security clearances (thereby stopping the investigation) to the Federal Prosecutors trying to investigate this alleged spying on Americans, does the US actually have ANY checks and balances on uncontrolled power?
More importantly, does anyone even care?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I've come up with a way to reduce—perhaps even eliminate—our dependence on foreign oil as an energy source.
As more and more civil liberties are trampled upon, faster and faster will the Founding Fathers spin in their respective graves.
If we attach magnets to each Founding Father, then wrap copper wire around each of them, we should have a potentially unlimited energy source. Well, at least until the Libertarians get elected in significant numbers—so yeah, come to think of it, it truly is unlimited.
The AC frequency, of course, might be unpredictable. In fact, I'd suspect it will be ever-increasing, which could create some technical issues to overcome. But we're smart people, I'm sure we can figure it out.
What do you all say? Shall we write up a grant proposal?
At this point, the current administration has basically said (without using so many words) that they are above the law.
I agree with your entire post except the part above within the parentheses. Since taking office in 2001, President Bush has issued signing statements on more than 750 new laws, declaring that he has the power to set aside the laws when they conflict with his legal interpretation of the Constitution.
This is by very definition holding yourself 'above the law'.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
When you don't teach people about the importance of civil liberties, it's no wonder they don't defend them. Bring back civics classes!
If you think what the NSA is collecting is bad, why not take a look at what you send the IRS every year. (Assuming you're living in America.)
So big whoop....
No, it's not ok at all for the government to double check all my phone calls just in case I was doing something wrong even though I've given them no reason to believe I have been. Why don't I let them check my house every night to make sure I don't have any stolen goods from my neighbor's house in there, too, and perhaps an escort to make sure I really am going to my office every morning and not the local top secret terrorist hideout. I haven't given them any reason to think that I'm doing those things, but they're at least as likely as me calling terrorists from my house to plan an attack.
I have heard this 'above the law' bit a lot. However, it seems rather shrill.
At one time, Congress declared that the Supreme Court could not strike down acts of Congress. Yet the Supreme Court seized that power. Marbury. At one time, Congress was unable to do a great deal of what it does today, yet its power has expanded through seizure and through jurisprudence, not amendment. Our legal history is rife with seminal moments, recognized by name, when once branch of government accumulated additional authority it wasn't previously considered to have.
What the President is doing is promoting a view of Presidential authority that has waxed and waned throughout our history. I am sympathetic to some of the view. The President is not a Prime Minister. The Presidency is a co-equal branch of government, with inherent powers that were not created by the Congress, and that cannot be constrained by the Congress. The extent of those powers is the question. The President, obviously, wants to maximize his inherent powers to act decisively and rapidly without legislative action. Congress wants to maximize its power to define what is and is not legal. The Supremes want to maximize their power of review, and the further we get from 1937 the more comfortable they are reclaiming it.
People should realize that the Presidency has given up a lot of its powers in the latter 20th century, and its going to start reclaiming them. The Supremes gave up a lot throughout the 20th century, and they too are reclaiming them. Those accustomed to the Congress being the more-equal among equals won't like it.
The current "negotiation" among the branches of government over power seems ominous and terrible and unprecedented to many today because they didn't live through the numerous prior precedents, or, less nobly, because they are blinded by partisanship. The President will over-reach, Congress will express holy indignation, the President will retreat to a lesser, but still greater than before, position, and the Supremes will eventually mediate it all when it reaches them in due course, after the furor and passion has died down.
Its the way our system works. People shouldn't get their panties all in a bunch. As there always are, there will be elections, and the people will have their say. Bush will be out of office. He won't become a dictator calling for a referendum on whether "Bush should be president" until 2031. He's no Caesar. The American legal system will keep moving along, constantly evolving and changing shape in fits and starts.
Larry
Don't get bent out of shape. Just remember to quote it like so:
"Sic Heil Bush" [sieg]
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
It is important that we be reminded of the proper course of action when our system starts to fail (as it seems to be doing now):
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What you are missing here is the basic concept of our government. The Executive Branch (President) enforces the laws, the Legistative Branch (Congress) makes the laws and the Judicial Branch (Supreme Court) intreprets the laws.
Equal, but Separate. Checks and Balances. Remember those terms from grade school? What you have here is an Executive Branch that has set itself above all the others. We call that a Dictatorship.
Is it beyond redemption? Absolutely not. All that is needed is for Congress to get a spine and conduct some oversight like they are supposed to. Which, unfortunately, will never happen as long as the Party Line is more important than the Nation. I hate to say "I told you so", but the moment the GOP made public their "Contract For America", I could see that the GOP would no longer be able to vote their conscience, but will be required to vote according to some hidden GOP agenda.
In other words, they would no longer be Our Representatives , as was intended.
"I drank what?" - Socrates
Statistics from 2002: * Heart Disease: 696,947
* Cancer: 557,271
* Stroke: 162,672
* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,816
* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 106,742
* Diabetes: 73,249
* Influenza/pneumonia: 65,681
* Alzheimer's disease: 58,866
* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 40,974
* Septicemia: 33,865
* Suicide: 30,622
* Murder: 16,110
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that our "war on terrorism" has costed us more than we spend on all of these other problems combined... maybe even by an order of magnitude. There's a difference between "We were attacked! Let's do nothing." and "We were attacked! Let's get our intelligence agencies to talk to start talking to each other and let's increase airline security." And there's a huge difference between the latter and "We were attacked! Let's spend close to a trillion dollars on wars and homeland security and allow the government to do unlimited search and seizures without warrants, force protesters into Free Speech Zones because they're (supposedly) a security risk, allow indefinite imprisonment without trial, allow the government to strip anyone of their USA citizenship without trial, and allow the NSA to monitor every single USA citizen when none of the terrorists on 9/11 were actually USA citizens.
You want a definitive change that will make America safer vs. terrorists? Here ya go, this is the only one that will work: switch to biodiesel/ethenol/hydrogen (with a trillion dollars of spending, we COULD make this happen) and tell Israel they're on their own (sucks to be them, but I would have no sympathy for someone who founded a nation in the Antartic and complained when their toes started falling off... similarly, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the all-too-predictable holy war Israel has been drawn into.)
Or, you and the rest of America can grow some fucking balls and realize that freedom isn't free. The price we pay isn't measured in dollars or even in the lives of our soldiers--it's measured by the lives of you, me, and every other civilian. Every day we put our lives on the line, even though our risk vs. terrorism and murder could be lessened if the government took draconian measures such as tagging us, putting cameras in our houses, and monitoring every single call we make. But that's not a fair tradeoff, not when murder and terrorism represent such a tiny tiny percent of our country's problem. We should not be monitored in any way without a warrant, and you're a damn fool for not seeing how this could be abused.
The Founders were very concerned about freedom of assembly--the curtailment of that freedom was one the methods dictators, in this case King George and the Tories, use to suppress dissent. If the 'government' could monitor the revolutionary meetings and find out who attended, they could then quietly round the participants up one by one later. In the modern age, the telephone is used to arrange many meetings. If any government wants to repress freedom of assembly and quash dissent, what better way than to have a list of a dissenter's contacts to round up for questioning? A few police dragnets and stakeouts and the matter is closed. They don't need to know the content of the call--association is 'guilty' and you are on the call list so you are brought in for quesitoning. Sure, there is a remote possibility the NSA _might_ find find some terrorists in this net, but this brute force drift net is going to trap and drown as a 'side kill' our freedom with much more certainty. The fact that this escapes the average American is no surprise--most of them have never read the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution and many don't recognize paragraphs from them when given in a poll. Freedom is too important to be trusted to the uneducated mob.--they won't miss it until they need it and then it will be too late.
The masses almost always value security over freedom until they have so little of either a revolution is born.
Now you're starting to sound like the founding fathers. Untenable aristocracy always has this fear, always afraid of that revolution, always chipping away at the freedom of the unwashed masses in order to abate it, yet always painfully aware that it will ultimately be their undoing.
The question is too abstract for most Americans. Instead of "do you care if the NSA has access to the numbers you call?" they should do some digging and ask "why did you call 555-6789 six times last week?". Somehow I feel this would generate a completely different emotional response.
After years of the government providing "safety nets" in the form of massive social welfare programs, after years of socialists telling people "Government is the answer," you wonder why this result. After years of the smartest and best making law after law to protect give special protection to each minority group they can pander to, is it any wonder? The lawmakers tell what you can and can not say at work, the lawmakers talk about crimes of hate, the lawmakers make you give them money so they can give old people drugs, social security, etc.
Is it any wonder we fear terrorism. After years of our press telling us we can't understand anything, and hiding truth in euphamisms, is it any wonder we fear it. After years of making criminals into victims, and terrorists into criminals, is there any wonder why we fear we aren't being told the truth?
It's odd to me the same group of people worried about call lists in the NSA database are the same ones who create this massive nanny state.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
The masses almost always value security over freedom until they have so little of either a revolution is born.
This is probably the best phrase I've ever seen. I hadn't thought about this until now, I was just wondering how (since societies apparently eventually seem to self-regulate and converge to some point) it is possible that so many freedoms are continuously chipped away from the people. Now I realise freedom is not a graph that converges somewhere, but one that lowers enough to pass the tolerance threshold, where a revolution brings it back way up, only to get it chipped at again in time.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
That would be the "Lyme Disease - hey, at least it's not AIDS!" argument.
Just because the current political climate in the United States "isn't as bad as ______[insert country]" doesn't make it ok.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Where can I find these little synthetic females?
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." - Alexander Tyler
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Honestly, I never dreamt that I'd be brought back to those scary, communist days. In the US of all places.
The CNN Online poll tells different story. It all depends who you ask: http://edition.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/24900.co ntent.html
The NRA leans very heavily to the Republican party. It's likely that many (if not most) voted for Bush at least twice. Damn single issue voters, they can't see the forest for the trees.
:), but its important that the people in the government know that we are aware of our rights and are willing to fight for them.
True, the NRA guys tend to be more Republican vs Democrat, but they also openly state that they will stand by an incumbent regardless of party affiliation.
I'm a Libertarian, and don't see too much of a difference between the dominant two parties, but I will say that I'm more democratic vs republican, but there are little real differences between them today.
The NRA is supposedly the most influential lobby groups in the US. And, yes, we/they are a bunch of narrow minded, cant see the forest for the trees, bunch of people like any extremist group. But I feel more comfortable living in a country that has a NRA like group and a 2nd amendment. The NRA ignores the part about the "well regulated militia", and I'm a little more open to have some form of regulation there.
But when things like the police illegally taking people's firearms in New Orleans after the hurricane when its up to the citizens to protect themselves in such a situation, and then the liberties that we have lost in the name of the "War on Terror". Well, these things need to stop.
I'm not advocating an armed march on the White House (yet
The US constitution is excellent, and when elected officials that are supposed to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States." Well, its up to us to make sure this happens.
The people in the US military are hardly volunteers. They're forced via leverage into combat through the realities of class difference.
You're born poor. You get a substandard education because all of the educational dollars and community infrastructure are re-routed to wealthy districts since that's where both the lobbyists and the lawmakers are from since they have the resources to affect policy and ability and access to means to vote while the poor can't even afford to take a day off of work to do so.
Because of this substandard education, you have few prospects in an economy in which labor is moving offshore to line the pockets of the very wealthy through the exploitation of cheap labor. To make things worse, there is NO WORK WHATSOEVER because there is no working economy in your part of town, and you can't afford to commute out of it to the other side of town where the rich people do have a working economy in order to land a job (nevermind the fact that they wouldn't hire you anyway--wrong side of the tracks and all).
But it's a problem to have no prospects, since you live in the inner city and there is no social safety net. There is nowhere for you to grow your own food or improvise shelter, but there is also no social infrastructure to feed you and clothe you, much less provide you and/or your children with basic medical care. You . will . die . prematurely, and so will your children.
BUT... The same Uncle Sam who won't guarantee you BASIC healthcare or fund the security force and investment necessary to help your community to feed itself or jumpstart its economy... comes along and says that if you are willing to carry a gun, he will feed both you *and* your children and provide you medical care and a retirement. Otherwise, you and they will suffer and die young. He promises you that it's safe, you won't die, the numbers are in your favor, our military is ultra-strong and ultra-well-equipped, it's like playing a video game, there's absolutely no risk, plus you'll get to travel and work with computers and get a better education and on-the-job-training and you'll finally have respect instead of being seen as a worthless piece of poor trash, and more to the point your . children . will . eat . and . be . healthy.
What choice do you have? After asking your recruiter again and being promised that it's utterly risk-free, and looking around your dive on the south side and out the window at your graffiti-covered neighborhood with boarded up windows everywhere and drug dealers on every corner, and thinking once more about how you never were able to finish high school because the school was so dangerous you were afraid to go and they didn't actually have any *textbooks* for lack of funding anyway, and you'll never amount to anything and your family has a history of heart disease and cancer and you want to be there for your children... you sign on the dotted line.
And then they send you to Iraq and you die.
And Uncle Sam and his gronies even wealthier thanks to you, a poor person, having been forced into labor at gunpoint to force Iraqis into US service at gunpoint.
And some shmuck posts to Slashdot about how you were happy to do it because you were brave and volunteer-minded.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
While the sentiment of the quote is good and all, it's also most likly made up. http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp
What I don't know I just fake...