The Public Supports Bush!
Oh, it may not show in the approval ratings, and it may only be in a limited area, but, as we saw when the NY Times first revealed the president’s domestic eavesdropping initiative late last year, the plain fact of the matter is that most people don’t seem to mind small compromises on privacy to fight terrorism:
A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it.
A slightly larger majority–66 percent–said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made, the poll found.
Underlying those views is the belief that the need to investigate terrorism outweighs privacy concerns. According to the poll, 65 percent of those interviewed said it was more important to investigate potential terrorist threats “even if it intrudes on privacy.” Three in 10–31 percent–said it was more important for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats.
Half–51 percent–approved of the way President Bush was handling privacy matters.
Glenn Greenwald is already trying to spin this away (and lay off Mickey Kaus, Glenn, he’s a better blogger than you or I will ever be!), but that’s not an ambiguous result. It is what one could rightly call a statement: the War on Terror trumps minor (minor, mind you) privacy concerns. Personally, I don’t give a damn if the government has my phone records, my credit card receipts, or any other piece of data they care to mine. I’ve got nothing to hide.
Does that mean I support unlimited privacy intrustions? Of course not…but the public is smart enough to know that very few people who aren’t engaged in a criminal enterprise have anything to fear from something as seemingly innocuous as this telephone database. There is a line that can be crossed, and it’s important to have this debate – but privacy advocates need to understand that the slippery slope argument can’t be used to just shut off debate.
Note that I’m not defending the legality of the telephone database (though I’ve seen no strong argument that it is illegal), I’m just pointing out an instance where the public has made a quite sensible decision not to lose perspective.
Here are the meat and potatoes:
44. What do you think is more important right now – (for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy); or (for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats)?
Investigate threats – 65% Respect Privacy – 31% No Opinion 4%
45. It’s been reported that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the conversations. Would you consider this an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism?
Acceptable 63% Unacceptable 35% No Opinion 2%
46. If you found out that the NSA had a record of phone numbers that you yourself have called, would that bother you, or not?
Yes 34% No 66%
It depends on what you mean by “minor” privacy concerns. Is my voice or the record of a phone call I make a paper/possession or anything else mentioned in the 4th amendment?
Also, how do we know they don’t listen to the calls or record them? Since this was the “same” program they talked about a few months ago, why is it automatically assumed all of the details have been leaked? Or maybe I’m just paranoid. Once again, I do agree with Glenn.
Also, I think it’s “ambiguous”. But, at least you were in the ballpark (as opposed to levity vs. gravity
).
Ooops – thanks, made the correction. Mike, I think what’s more interesting than what you or I define as a ‘minor’ concern is the fact that a 2/3 majority defines the phone database as a minor concern, at least according to these poll results.
There has been some commentary on the 4th Amendment implications, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet…perhaps tonight or tomorrow…
Regardless of whether the government is actually eavesdropping on these calls, this relevation does discredit Bush’s initial claim that the NSA program only intercepted international calls, so this does raise credibility issues.
And, to be honest, I really can’t understand what the whole point of this data mining software is supposed to be. I’m all for diligent prosecution on the war on terror, and I think my prior comments on this website bear that out, but we have mountains of untranscribed conversations between known Al Queda terrorists that we don’t have enough qualified translators (or, rather, we don’t have enough qualified heterosexual translators) to analyze. Offhand, I would think those conversations are a bit more likely to be productive than this particular facet of the NSA program.
yes, the public supports Bush
at a rate of about 29%.
Listen to the wisdom of the people.
… and yet Bush would still beat Kerry if an election was held tomorrow.
How does this “new” disclosure discredit Bush’s initial claim that the NSA program only intercepts international calls? Domestic calls are not being intercepted, call logs are being collected and analyzed for patterns and for contact with, presumably, known terrorists.
I don’t think we will know the answer to Steve’s question until we know how the data are used. Are people with suspicious activity then eavesdropped? If so, then domestic calls are being listened to, What defines suspicious activity? How do terrorists use the phone differently than anybody else? How reliable is it — is this effective and targeted, or does anyone with a brother in Baghdad get listened to? Are the date held indefinitely? Who else has access to data? Are they used for any purpose besides fighting terrorists?
Until these questions are answered, “Bush’s initial claim that the NSA program only intercepts international calls” is a very open question –
True enough. Presumably identified patterns of calls to or from suspect numbers is used as probable cause to solicit a surveillance warrant?
One would hope so — although the administration’s history of ignoring the FISA courts when it was convenient to do so doesn’t suggest much confidence that the administration would be following the law here either –
Seems to me that a comprehensive database of the nation’s phone records is a ideal tool for going after a variety of malefactors, from child pornographers to tax cheats to anti-war protesters to …
Even granting the dubious assumption that its use has, heretofore, been restricted to tracking the phone calls of al Qaeda suspects, is there any reason to believe that it will not be put to other uses in the future?
My question is whether this issue will cause a schism in conservative ranks between those who favor government-off-our-backs libertarianism and those who favor an imperial executive branch unencumbered by constitutional niceties.
If you approve of the data-mining program to fight terrorism, would you also approve of the government keeping tabs on where you go at night? It seems to me that the government could combine restaurant credit card receipts, EZ Pass toll records, and Fandango transactions to compile another huge database. Perhaps patterns of suspicious activities would emerge which would identify terrorists. How about mandating a GPS device on your car so the government can track your movements? The government could see who visits mosques and learn a lot more about potential terrorist acts. It would have the added benefit of being able to automatically generate a speeding ticket every time you drive five miles over the limit.
These are ridiculous examples, but the point remains: the reason there are checks and balances (and why the Constitution specifically gives Congress certain responsibilities in the conduct of war) is so that there is some degree of oversight over the executive branch. This administration has never acknowledged any limits on its powers: everything is justified provided the administration in its sole judgment declares that it is related to national security. It conceals what it is doing and then prosecutes those who reveal it. The saddest thing is that we have had a flaccid and timid Congress which is unable to do anything except roll over when asked to do so. Future historians will undoubtedly look at the period of Republican control starting in 2001 as one of the lowest points in our history, with the wild goose chases of our day rivalling the McCarthy period or the internment of Japanese in World War II.
Jacques, peter, your argument is the slippery slope – and the slippery slope is a well-known rhetorical device to shut off debate. Instead of engaging in hypotheticals, why not address the issue at hand – do you support the analysis of telephone records, containing numbers only and not the content of conversations, as a valid anti-terrorism tool?
I’m pretty sure your answer is no (correct me if I’m wrong), but it appears a 2/3 majority has no problem with that…
More on this issue (much more) later today, I hope, including an explanation for why I don’t like the slippery slope…
Why not the content, too? Is there any justification (legal, moral, or practical) for drawing that distinction?
It (the legal term is a “pen register”) is a valid tool for combatting all kinds of bad things: terrorism, child pornography, drug trafficking, …
You have asked the wrong question.
The question isn’t whether it’s a valid tool. The question is whether it should be wielded with no judicial oversight, or — in fact — without any restraint on how it is used.
To do so is an open invitation to abuse.
Let me turn the question around.
Do you think that the reporters who broke the NSA spying stories have had their phone records examined under this program? If not, why not?
I would support it if a case could be made that analysis of telephone records is shown to be an effective tool in finding and combating terrorists. I would want some assurance that it is not a wild goose chase which compiles data for the sake of compiling data. I would want to know that the analysis is strictly limited to fighting terror, and I would want to know what safeguards are in place to prevent its abuse or its disclosure to third parties. I would want to know how secure the data are from hacking. I would insist on some type of judicial supervision. I would want to know how long the data are kept and who destroys them.
These are reasonable things to insist on, and debating them is part of the democratic process. It is not tipping our hand to terrorists — unless you think Al Qaeda is the modern day equivalent of F Troop, they already know that their phones are tapped. If the administration wants to present its case, then fine. However, hiding behind a mantle of “trust me, I know what I’m doing” doesn’t pass the smell test.
Well, peter and Jacques, I guess I’ll move from the comments to a post – I’ve been promising to take a stand on this for a couple of days, so I’m going to work on that post and put it up shortly. You may or may not be surprised to find that we do have some common ground on this issue, as well as our differences…
[...] …is that polls change frequently, and give often contradictory information depending on how the questions are phrased. As an example, a lot of the President’s supporters (including me) did a little crowing (and a lot of his political opponents cried foul) when an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed a 2/3 majority approving of the NSA’s phone database. A Newsweek poll released the very next day, however, shows the following: 53 percent of Americans think the NSA’s surveillance program “goes too far in invading people’s privacy,” while 41 percent see it as a necessary tool to combat terrorism. [...]
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