Most Americans OK With Warrantless Internet Surveillance

Megalith

Megalith

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That is the conclusion based on a survey of 1,042 Americans on the subject.

In the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 54 percent of Americans say it can be necessary for the government to sacrifice freedoms to fight terrorism; 45 percent disagree. About half of Americans think it is acceptable to allow warrantless government analysis of internet activities and communications—even of American citizens—in order to keep an eye out for suspicious activity. About 3 in 10 are against this type of government investigation.
 
The fear campaign by the government and media is strong.

I work in IT and a lot of the older guys are fine with it too; mind boggling.

Sure, you have nothing to hide, doesn't mean they should be allowed to do so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but NSA wasn't able to provide an instance where the mass surveillance program definitively prevented some sort of terrorist attack.

It's to the point where they have so much being monitored that they can't sift through all the noise.
 
A shade over 1000 "american's" polled represents 300+ Million others?

Yeahhhhhhhhh I'm calling bullshit.
 
iDShaDoW said:
[...]Correct me if I'm wrong, but NSA wasn't able to provide an instance where the mass surveillance program definitively prevented some sort of terrorist attack.[...]
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they prevented over 9000 terrorist attacks, but it's so top secret that they can't report on it.


rewted said:
A shade over 1000 "american's" polled represents 300+ Million others?

Yeahhhhhhhhh I'm calling bullshit.
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i'm calling bullshit on your knowledge of maths and statistics.
 
temujin987 said:
i'm calling bullshit on your knowledge of maths and statistics.
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Statistics are bullshit anyways, as the "results" can be fudged any which way depending on the question they are trying to answer. I would say that there isn't enough raw data to form any conclusion in this case.
 
iDShaDoW said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but NSA wasn't able to provide an instance where the mass surveillance program definitively prevented some sort of terrorist attack.
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nah, youre right. since it was enacted it has officially prevented exactly 0 terrorist actions, domestic or abroad.

the alphabet agencies have been operating for decades with no oversight, only reigning themselves in temporarily when theyre thrust uncomfortably into the spotlight (ie waco, or more recently, the snowden leaks)

the american public at large is more interested in focusing on the superfluous day-to-day thats right past the bridge of their nose, like when the next game of thrones comes out.
 
temujin987 said:
i'm calling bullshit on your knowledge of maths and statistics.
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I'm no expert on math for sure, but I'd say that 0.00000333333 percent of the population being quoted as the sample size is vastly undersized.
 
And the entire sample group was taken from Middle Aged house wives in gated communities who only want us to "think of the children".
 
Then most Americans are fucking stupid and don't deserve privacy OR protection.

I ain't one of them.
 
rewted said:
I'm no expert on math for sure, but I'd say that 0.00000333333 percent of the population being quoted as the sample size is vastly undersized.
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A sample size of ~1,000 is pretty reasonable for a nation-wide survey. Like with a knee jerk from my college statistics courses (which I'm already starting to brain dump) that's probably like a 95% confidence interval. That's usually the target percentage for most surveys. As long as the people conducting the survey were able to get a pretty wide distribution of opinions and asked a set of properly worded questions, then it's probably a pretty meaningfully useful survey. Since we don't know the latter two parts (distribution and question methods), yeah still take the outcome with a grain of salt, but I don't think the number of people itself is a good reason to be suspicious.

You also have to take into account that most of [H]'s forum residents have very similar demographics, interests, and opinions so it's very much like an echo chamber in here when people start to air out their strong opinions. On catforum.com or my favorite free-form RPG forum mizahar.com, if a discussion like this were to come up, it'd be a very different discussion because the people aren't the same. Here, it's pretty heavily sexist, anti-government, older men grumping about the way stuff used to be and how it's not the same. In mizahar.com there's more younger people, more females, and a (prolly...just guessing because I don't ask) a bigger racial distribution so there's lots more divergent opinions and, honestly, people have stuff to worry about besides what's happing to taxes or their retirement check so conversations are naturally not focused on government, party politics, or how mistreated angry white guys are in the world. :)
 
Senator Feingold questions Assistant Attorney General David Kris and Inspector General Glenn Fine at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on reauthorizing the USA PATRIOT Act on September 23, 2009
https://youtu.be/HSXMW2FMC7A?t=97

/Follow the money Lebowski, warrantless surveillance is another one of law enforcement's asset forfeiture gold mining tools.
 
Kor said:
And the entire sample group was taken from Middle Aged house wives in gated communities who only want us to "think of the children".
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Age did in fact matter very much in this study:

"Out of all the survey respondents under 30, only a third supported the idea of warrantless Internet surveillance. In contrast, two-thirds of Americans over the age of 30 supported the idea."
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Someone's not familiar with a sample size.
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Let's do a poll here, then. Out of 100 people, let's see how many are ok with it.

Sample size vs. the sample selection. I can call up 1000 people in the Portland metro area and ask about gun control. Or I can call up 1000 people in rural Texas about it. Depends on what kind of bias I want to show.

Or I could call 1000 number that I got from the GOP, asking about their stance on abortion.

I don't put a lot of faith in these type of surveys. I'm sure this one isn't that far off, but I really don't think the poll itself is very great.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Let's do a poll here, then. Out of 100 people, let's see how many are ok with it.

Sample size vs. the sample selection. I can call up 1000 people in the Portland metro area and ask about gun control. Or I can call up 1000 people in rural Texas about it. Depends on what kind of bias I want to show.

Or I could call 1000 number that I got from the GOP, asking about their stance on abortion.

I don't put a lot of faith in these type of surveys. I'm sure this one isn't that far off, but I really don't think the poll itself is very great.
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I kinda covered that already in this other post:

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1042064954&postcount=13

But yeah, the short version is I agree that we dunno enough about the who and how of the survey to just be all like, "Well yes, that's totally right!"
 
You know what, I have nothing to hide. The Federal Government already holds your whole life between birth/death with certificates, licenses, ss#, debt, address, etc. So if some 25 y/o analyst wants to look through my browser history and finds out I like pc websites and chunky chick pron, so be it.
 
Having a public poll for the entire country of the US based on 1,042 people is woefully inadequate. On top of this, this poll is by "The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research"?! They are supposed to be an independent organisation, need to read more about this cause this seems to border on propaganda...
 
I'd quote George Carlin at this point with one of his most eloquent statements about some humans aka people but I don't want to get myself in trouble. ;)

Suffice to say stupid people are pretty much going to be the death of us all someday.
 
As long as those 1000 people chosen for the survey are truly representative of the 300 million it's actually a reasonable sample size. Supposedly this study did try to do that too. They surveyed people from all 50 states, all age groups, genders, etc.

It shouldn't be that hard to believe 54% of Americans will happily give up their privacy/rights for security. Just look at all the stuff we allowed the government to get away with after the 9/11 attacks, a lot of which had the support of even more than 54% of Americans... It's a cliche but we really do have the government we deserve.
 
I'm a rabid individualist who believes people have come to value their own individual lives too much. People are horrific cowards nowadays, and will gladly give up freedom to ensure the safety of their own sorry hides.

I know I'm going to die one day, and if it happens prematurely due to a terrorist attack, oh well. Honor my memory by killing the fuckers responsible; don't go passing freedom-robbing laws in a vain attempt to stop it from happening again.
 
SSimmons05 said:
You know what, I have nothing to hide. The Federal Government already holds your whole life between birth/death with certificates, licenses, ss#, debt, address, etc. So if some 25 y/o analyst wants to look through my browser history and finds out I like pc websites and chunky chick pron, so be it.
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So I guess you dont mind installing teamviewer and sharing you login info ?
 
RMCO said:
54% of the Americans polled are mentally deficient.
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RealBeast said:
haha -- only 54%, I think that you are severely understating the number of stupid Americans. :voml:
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No, you are overestimating the number of stupid Americans. Only 50% of Americans have an IQ of less than 100. This sample got only 4% more stupid people than the average, which is surprisingly good any survey.
 
Polls like this are totally dependent on how the question is couched. The classic BBC comedy "Yes Prime Minister" did a good job explaining this with a military service poll

[Sir Humphrey demonstrates how public surveys can reach opposite conclusions]
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think there is lack of discipline and vigorous training in our Comprehensive Schools?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think young people welcome some structure and leadership in their lives?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do they respond to a challenge?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Might you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?
Bernard Woolley: Er, I might be.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes or no?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Of course, after all you've said you can't say no to that. On the other hand, the surveys can reach opposite conclusions.
[survey two]
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Are you unhappy about the growth of armaments?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think there's a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think it's wrong to force people to take arms against their will?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Would you oppose the reintroduction of conscription?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
[does a double-take]
Sir Humphrey Appleby: There you are, Bernard. The perfectly balanced sample.
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if they couched these questions around the threat of terrorism and using this a measure to prevent attacks it would tend to be acceptable ... if it is presented as part of an overreaching and ineffective government bureaucracy it might not be so popular
 
We can all let this country go to shit together I guess.
Just take away any of these legal protections, cause you know they weren't that important!
 
This is B.S.

Guaranteed everyone I ask within my circle would say hell no. So for my control group, it would be a unanimous %100 not for it.
 
iDShaDoW said:
... Correct me if I'm wrong, but NSA wasn't able to provide an instance where the mass surveillance program definitively prevented some sort of terrorist attack.....
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You are not wrong, but at the same time, it's an unfair question when you consider the mechanics involved.

That mass surveillance Program, the Telephone meta-data program, only collected very specific call meta-data. And the data itself was used by taking information that was already known and querying against connected info to identify potential connections. No one would claim that that database was responsible for preventing an attack. But they did claim that it helped prevent several attacks. A few dozen in the US and many more outside the US.

How to say it another way, You are a student and you use many resources in your studys in order to gain your degree. One resource you use is wikipedia. Would you claim that wikipedia was responsible for you passing any of your classes on the way to your degree?

Was it useful is a very different question, but that isn't what they asked.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
I'm a rabid individualist who believes people have come to value their own individual lives too much. People are horrific cowards nowadays, and will gladly give up freedom to ensure the safety of their own sorry hides.

I know I'm going to die one day, and if it happens prematurely due to a terrorist attack, oh well. Honor my memory by killing the fuckers responsible; don't go passing freedom-robbing laws in a vain attempt to stop it from happening again.
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I'm sorry, how much of your freedom has the bulk-metadata database cost you sir?

The entire premise of why that database should be around is because "it could be abused", it's about the potential for misuse. This is also the reason it is close to the line when it comes to the Constitution, the 4th Amendment, all of it.

In order to protect our freedoms we have to draw a line somewhere, actually it's several lines in several places. They moved one of the lines, the question remains "did they move it too far"?

I knew they were moving a line or two with the Patriot Act. My personal thoughts were that as long as they didn't change things so that we couldn't change it back, then I could live with it and see how it turned out. Obviously some are more concerned then others and not everyone is happy with the new lines and it looks like some lines are being moved back closer to their original positions and others are not. But what I am still comfortable with is that we still retain the ability to effect change and therefor we still have the ability to find the right balance between all our needs.

That's just my take on it.
 
SSimmons05 said:
You know what, I have nothing to hide. The Federal Government already holds your whole life between birth/death with certificates, licenses, ss#, debt, address, etc. So if some 25 y/o analyst wants to look through my browser history and finds out I like pc websites and chunky chick pron, so be it.
Click to expand...

The town wastewater plant knows that I take shits, knows when I eat corn, but I'm not leaving my door open to let them watch me take a shit. I don't care if someone watches, I have nothing to hide. I just like my privacy. Nothing else other than I want my privacy. I am doing nothing wrong. I am hiding nothing. I just don't want anyone else to watch. This goes for a lot of things.

The internet is an open network. I expect my data to be insecure. Same with phone calls. It's using someone else's network. We have a reasonable expectation for privacy, though. I feel that privacy is being broken, though. I have little trust in the US Government (they broke the trust, I used to put more trust in them). I am 99.9% sure that what I do is of zero interest to them. Yet, my data is there. They'll probably never look at it, but it's there for reasons. I don't like that.

You want someones data? Get a warrant. Then, there is a reason for the monitoring. There is a valid and legit reason to be watching someone.
 
DonInKansas said:
About half /= "most"
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This is a bigger problem then the poll itself. The spin of the reporting source and that we can't trust what we are being told. Your personal decisions will only be as good as your judgment and your understanding of the situation.
 
lcpiper said:
This is a bigger problem then the poll itself. The spin of the reporting source and that we can't trust what we are being told. Your personal decisions will only be as good as your judgment and your understanding of the situation.
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Yep.

They did say that 1/3 of those interviews UNDER age 30 said no, and those OVER age 30 were more slated to Yes. I wonder if they went to Grandma's retirement home and surveyed those WELL over 30 that have no idea what the internet even is.
 
More important to me is why a reporter headlines with "Most Americans" when given the accuracy of the poll, it's almost an even match. Is the reporter trying to sell us on the idea that most everyone thinks there is nothing wrong and the rest should just accept it and get over their concerns.

It may sound funny to you guys, but even I have a problem with that.
 
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