Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Majority of Americans OK With Warrantless Internet Surveillance (ap.org)

Posted by Soulskill on from the those-who-sacrifice-liberty-for-security-deserve-moldy-bagels dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A new poll conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research gathered opinions on the U.S. government's surveillance of internet communications. The poll found that a majority of Americans, 56%, were in favor of warrantless surveillance. 28% explicitly opposed it. 67% of Republicans and 55% of Democrats supported the warrantless surveillance, while only 40% of Independents supported it. Americans under 30 supported warrantless surveillance much less than older Americans. Further, "The poll finds that for most Americans, safety concerns trump civil liberties at least some of the time. More than half — 54 percent — say it's sometimes necessary for the government to sacrifice freedoms to fight terrorism, while 45 percent think that's not necessary. On a more general level, 42 percent say it's more important for the government to ensure Americans' safety than to protect citizens' rights, while 27 percent think rights are more important and 31 percent rate both equally."

6 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Those who would give up essential Liberty... by ffkom · · Score: 5, Insightful
    to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. (Benjamin Franklin)

    Still very, very true...

    1. Re: Those who would give up essential Liberty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The majority of Americans are morons...

    2. Re: Those who would give up essential Liberty... by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The vast majority of humans are idiots. The difference is, Americans and Englishmen feel they have either a god given right or patriotic duty to basque in the glory of their own stupid.

      I have traveled to many countries spending a week here and a week there. Only three countries I've experienced have truly combined stupidity with arrogance to an extreme that I simply preferred my own company... and I don't even like myself.
      1) India : The worst... these people would lie to your face and not even know they had done so. But if it sounds good to them, they'll say it. It seems that they always assume you're either dumber than they are or that you'll dislike confrontation so much, you'll just do what they want to be rid of them. Outside India, I have almost never encountered this behavior from Indian people... except from the fools who spend an hour painting their social status on their foreheads each morning.

      2) US : Close second... this is a place where people glorify all forms of competition to such an extreme that they join religions, political parties, etc... as if they were teams and no matter how stupid their team might be acting at the time, so long as it's their team it must be right no matter how sane and logical the alternative is. 99% of the time, the US can be summarized as "Two wrongs don't make a right, but if your wrong and the other team is wrong, it's your patriotic duty to attempt to dominate the other team and force your wrong on them which in the end makes it right". America is most famous around the world for people who ask "How are you doing?" to be polite but don't bother waiting for an answer. On top of that, America sells the military as if it were a religion and that the soldiers are priests or acolytes.

      Where else can you go to in the world, at 18 years old volunteer to sign up for a job which trains you, feeds you, clothes you and places a roof over your head and then also provides you a stipend of disposable cash (ideally for savings, more likely for a car) remaining equal to or exceeding that available to someone who earns $55,000 a year with a university education. In addition, if you wear your military issued clothing everywhere you go, it's not only socially appropriate, but people will treat you like you're some sort of hero and give up business class seats and more to support their troops.

      Guys... military is a job... when you sign up, unless you're an absolute idiot (based on the topic of this conversation, most are) you're signing a contract with terms and conditions defining what you are responsible for and what you'll be paid. You have a clearly defined job. If you happen to end up on a battlefield presented with a choice of shooting someone or having them shoot you... or there are bombs bursting in air, this is not heroic... this is as stupid as being on the cast of jack-ass. If you're a fool who believes it's your god given duty to shoot the other guy who also believes it's his god given duty to shoot you, then you're better off sitting down for a cup of coffee and discussing where you went wrong in your thinking and maybe discuss sports or girls.

      Let's talk guns... in America it's a religion... a persons right to bare arms is such a fundamental right that to not have at least 5 weapons on you at a given time is simply un-American. What do you expect from a country where people glorify the wild west. I personally enjoy a visit to the shooting range on occasion where I get to try different firearms and spend money for the privilege of wasting extremely expensive bullets to punch holes in sheets of paper at long distances for some inexplicable reason. I can't see ever actually owning a gun as I have no need for one and I don't dislike paper enough to need to punch holes in it at home with NATO rounds. But Americans seem to collect them... it's important to them... their Declaration of Independence demonizes King George the III as a tyrant. This is hilarious because the exact same bullshit they do today. They started a war against an

  2. Maybe, maybe not. Survey numbers are often "fuzzy" by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suppose "technically" 54% is a majority, but it's not a landslide. Also, I wonder if wording of the questions and / or scenarios might change this number? Sure, most people want to fight "terrorists", but get into more detail about the invasiveness of the surveillance, and people might have different ideas.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  3. Re:Maybe, maybe not. Survey numbers are often "fuz by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Do you think that putting suspicious elements under surveillance to combat terrorism is acceptable?"

    It's all in the wording. Seriously, part of my degree required lots of statistics, I could probably come up with a question worded in such a way to prove that the people in the US want a Communist Regime badly.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. iRe: Those who would give up essential Liberty... by firewrought · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not unimaginable, given some of the incindinerary talk about Muslims/liberals/homos/SJW's. We did it to 100,000+ Japanese-Americans during WW2, and we did it various Native American tribes before that (despite declarations from the Supreme Court, in the case of the Cherokees). You can object that these were not instances of full-on, permanent tyranny (like North Korea), but they were brutal events for the targeted populations, prosecuted without objection from the majority of this supposedly freedom-loving populace. Remember that Rome itself transitioned to a dictatorship with the support of her people. Caeser treated his army well and the senate was increasingly seen as helpless to address the problems of empire. There are plenty in the US who would support arbitrarily trampling it the Constitution and democratic principles so longed as it helped their cause it made them feel a little safer from a handful of bad actors. This article merely reflects how naieve we are about the dynamics of power (especially our children, who grow surrounded by surveillance). Unfortunately, it looks like the continue continuous expansion of federal (and corporate) powers that's been occurring for there past ~90 years will keep accelerating upwards, with near unilateral support from across the political spectrum. The consequences will be severe.

    --
    -1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction