More Americans see man who leaked NSA secrets as 'patriot' than traitor

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-usa-security-poll-idUSBRE95B1AF20130612

by bconway • 13 years ago

345 77 13 years ago

Surprise: press has large effect on what people think was actually leaked. I'm sure 99% of those interviewed have no idea what he actually leaked entailed. I'd be more interested in a study that asked people if they knew what they were actually outraged about. A majority of the insinuations of the original "leak" have since been retracted and those actually following the details of the story have no belief that there is anything illegal going on.

Real opinion pieces that actually ask the hard questions like "should the government know less than Google" are all but ignored, in favor of 6 year old backdoor "zero-days", frontpage'd on HN, for applications that have been out of favor for even longer, or politically motivated 'stub' court cases that aren't expected to go anywhere. It has all the indications of a coordinated media event, not a real political scandal. Nobody really cares what's going on, we just care that there is popular support going forward. Popular support for what exactly? for general NSA outrage?

stevewillows4• 13 years ago

I think you have a point to pose the question regarding the major Internet companies knowing more about us than the government.

Are there any articles that have stuck out to you that you'd care to share?

discostrings7• 13 years ago

The government is a privileged actor that can do many harmful things to a person that a company cannot. The government has a monopoly on coercion, and it claims the sole right to deprive you of life, liberty, and property. For these powers not be abused, there must be real and serious limits on government power. Of course people and companies you enter into private agreements with should know more about what you share with them than the government should.

throwaway420• 13 years ago

> those actually following the details of the story have no belief that there is anything illegal going on

Just want to point out that this kind of thing being technically legal might be the scariest fact of all.

discostrings7• 13 years ago

I'd be more interested in a study that asked people if they knew what they were actually outraged about.

To list a few reasons people are outraged: -Surveillance has been revealed that seems to far exceed what is authorized by the Patriot Act -The executive branch refuses to release the legal rationale on which it justifies the surveillance -Senior officials have lied to Congress about the scope of surveillance -Congress has not properly been briefed on these programs -There programs were kept secret unnecessarily -These programs are extremely dangerous to a free society -It appears this is a serious overreach in executive power, indicating a breakdown in the checks and balances of a functioning representative government

A majority of the insinuations of the original "leak" have since been retracted

I don't know of any insinuations that have been retracted. The NSA slides say one thing, and the companies say another. There is still much to resolve.

and those actually following the details of the story have no belief that there is anything illegal going on.

This is completely false. There seems to be a claimed legal basis for what's going on (which happens to be an extreme interpretation of the Patriot Act that even its author states goes beyond what it was written to authorize). But it hasn't been ruled on by a court because the executive branch claims it is too secret for judicial review. When that obstruction is removed, it's likely to be found unconstitutional.

Sure, people you interview might not be able to clearly express the reasons they're outraged. But there are at least three tiers of reasons to be concerned. Please consider reflecting on the fact that a claim of legality is not a claim that something is not terribly wrong and dangerous for society.

skwirl2• 13 years ago

In your first paragraph, you seem to assert that this program is as The Guardian reported (that is - essentially unfettered access to private data stored with tech companies). In your second paragraph, you seem to admit that we don't really know and there is more to be resolved.

Ultimately, I think you are talking past the person you are replying to. You are arguing that the program as reported by The Guardian (essentially unfettered access to personal data stored with tech companies) is horrible. He is arguing that the program is not what it is being made out to be, and the differences between what it is now popularly believed to be and what it is are tremendous. That is a more fundamental argument that would make the other argument moot if it is true.

See: https://medium.com/prism-truth/82a1791c94d3

res0nat0r3• 13 years ago

Here is a summary of the Guardian story and what has been changed: http://www.zdnet.com/the-real-story-in-the-nsa-scandal-is-th...

"Updated June 10 to include a quote from a follow-up article in the Post directly contradicting its initial claims and another observation after the release of the leaker's identity."

burntsushi2• 13 years ago

Real opinion pieces that actually ask the hard questions like "should the government know less than Google" are all but ignored

Maybe most people on HN don't consider that a hard question? At the very least, I consider it an ill-stated question. I think something a little more transparent would be better: at what point must a company forfeit all knowledge to the government?

And when you put it that way, it really doesn't seem like a hard question to answer. At least, not for me.

jstanley2• 13 years ago

What would your answer be?

At what point do you think a company should be required to forfeit all knowledge to the government?

pvnick• 13 years ago

A majority of the insinuations of the original "leak" have since been retracted

I don't think this is true at all. Glenn Greenwald is sticking to his guns, alluding to further revelations, and there has been no evidence contrary to his claims other than press releases by the companies in question.

I'm not sure where this "nothing to see here" idea on HN came from, but it's false and dishonest.

dllthomas2• 13 years ago

"should the government know less than Google[?]"

It's an interesting framing but I don't think a correct one.

To the question itself, in some areas the government should absolutely know less than other groups/individuals. My wife should know a lot more about me than the government does, and she does very little data mining.

To the framing, though, just as there's a tremendous difference between "follow that car" and "follow every car" (http://www.schneier.com/essay-109.html), there's a tremendous difference between "knowing what Google knows" and "knowing what Google knows plus what Facebook knows plus what Apple knows plus what Twitter knows plus what Verizon knows plus ...".

malandrew2• 13 years ago

Google mainly knows the things it tells it. Government should be the same. I tell the government about my taxes. They should know that because I gave them that information. I didn't give them my search information, so they should not have that without a court-approved search warrant. If they want my search history without one, they should ask me directly for it and I should have the right to deny them that information.

nitrogen• 13 years ago

Did you not read the Verizon order? The order that very clearly demands a daily dump of all metadata (source/destination phone numbers, date/time, etc.) for all customers, even those calls wholly within the US?

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

Additionally it isn;t clear to me if cell site location data generated in order to be able to enable a call would fall under it. If it does, then the order turns our cell phones into Knotts-type tracking beepers.

JacksonGariety• 13 years ago

My (very liberal) mother asked me today if I had read David Brooks' piece on Snowden.

I said I had and she told me that she agrees with the government surveillance and told me Snowden was a traitor to the American people.

I said, "You support PRISM?!"

She said, "What's PRISM?"

People have no idea. All they know is Snowden, Snowden, Snowden...

Sven74• 13 years ago

I support PRISM and don't think Snowden is a traitor. Is that opinion acceptable?

PRISM can't be dismantled, for the same reason no one on the planet has figured out how to dismantle nuclear arsenals. The other guy is doing it too.

tripzilch4• 13 years ago

Yes, actually.

I'm not an American. Which means that I am glad that there's finally some media outrage concerning privacy in general, because it was already public knowledge for months (with no leaks necessary) that the EU agreed the NSA could tap any EU-citizen's data in the US (or under the jurisdiction of).

For some reason this went by without barely a squeak[0].

In fact, a great many transgressions on our privacy (concerning both US and the EU and probably the World) went by without a squeak.

There is enough to be outraged about, even without knowing what this leak exactly entails. The important point is, it has the public's attention. And if the overwhelming majority of people are not okay with unlimited surveillance, isn't that a good thing? As you say, popular support going forward? It's about time, didn't you think?

[0] In the news media. Some organisations definitely took notice and adjusted their dependence on US data storage accordingly.

sentenza• 13 years ago

By the way, the new EU data protection (i.e., privacy) directive is being written _right now_ and consumer representatives (or activists) report that there is a massive lobbying effort underway to weaken current privacy standards. Given the revelations of recent days, now might be a good time to support those that want a stronger data protection directive.

jvictor1184• 13 years ago

I'm a bit surprised that there are so few people who legitimately don't care at all. I actually don't care. I think it gives people a creepy, Orwellian-type feeling (because there were similar ideas in 1984) but the most significant part of 1984 was the totalitarian government itself. If covert methods are used to enforce the (possibly absurd) laws of a totalitarian regime, that's one thing; for the NSA to use covert methods to enforce our democratically produced laws and our collective desire for national security, that's something quite different. In the end, nothing they enforce relates to anything I do in my day to day life.

rcavezza• 13 years ago

Sample size is 645 people - I don't think that's large enough to mean anything.

aptwebapps• 13 years ago

It depends on how they drew the sample. It's certainly large enough, statistically speaking.

adammichaelc• 13 years ago

Also says it's an "online survey." So it has a self-selection bias. In order to be useful, the survey would have to be from a random sampling of people. Calling folks on the phone is the best way to accomplish this.

adrianb• 13 years ago

Not to mention almost half of respondents said they have no opinion yet. Title seems a bit misleading in my view.

quarterto• 13 years ago

Traitor: 23% ± 4.4%. Patriot: 31% ± 4.4%. Hmm.

cygnus• 13 years ago

traitor XOR patriot.

This is so narrow minded in my opinion. Snowden has done something good to the world, because US administration is secrectly messing with everybody around the globe.

Stop considering it happened only within US borders or as an internal matter. US and US media still are using a group (country) scale reduction to draw some bad opinion on Snowden, divide and gain some people to this spying dementia.

If you look on an international scale, the trivial question would be : hero or villain, and the answer is quite obvious.

AAaaaand somebody is knocking on my door...

cinquemb2• 13 years ago

If you look on an international scale…

I keep thinking about how in some Asian and Middle Eastern countries, the same things have been going on (if not more overt), and I wonder if their citizens have as much apathy as ours?

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

My experience is that everyone everywhere these days loves their country and distrusts their government. The question, as always, is how individuals and groups of people navigate the government and vice versa. The specific limits vary from one place to another but the attitudes seem remarkably stable over time too.

For example in medieval Iceland, one of the major protections against unreasonable search and seizure was a combination of limiting the number of people who could be involved in searching for a stolen item for example, and also mandating all the places where the MUST search. So you could only have so many bondir searching for a stolen item and they couldn't selectively search farms. Instead they were required to search all farms between two suspects. this made very indiscriminent searching impractical.

Pherdnut• 13 years ago

I see him as more of a responsible citizen with a big brass pair. It's the 50+% who apparently don't mind what's going on as long as it keeps them safe from terrorism that I consider traitors.

nutate• 13 years ago

I can think of a word that rhymes with patriot for this guy.

That said it was great to hear the congress and the heads of the departments agreeing that the entire process deserves review. There was zero animosity, etc at the finance committee meeting today. Very cool to see when the government is working, a dialog is happening, etc.

But this guy is the ultimate sophomore, and if you ask me he was turned by China or just by some dreams of entering into some 31337 hax0r club illuminati.

All for leaking a powerpoint detailing what was codified in law over the past decade.

humanspecies• 13 years ago

Looks like he's not the only one with an adjective that rhymes with patriot.

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

As things continue to develop in Hong Kong I am more and more impressed by his choice of venue. I would not call him an idiot and I would not want to wager anything important on my chess skills against him.

Hong Kong is actually the perfect place because he is able to play three distinct groups off eachother. The immediately obvious parties are the US and China who both are likely to look at this in terms of what he knows, but then there is also the large-scale concern in Hong Kong over encroachment by the Chinese government so he is able to play Hong Kong off China as well. It is one thing to play two groups off eachother but three gives him a significant chance.

Moreover an extradition request would be a total game changer. Right now it is a game of chicken. Extradition procedings woudl turn it into a game of national security assets and intra-Chinese politics.

The fear of him already being turned by the Chinese is another thing he is able to play off of.

alexholehouse• 13 years ago

So, in summary, the difference between a patriot and a traitor is just PR. Pun intended.

D_Alex• 13 years ago

Wow... good job! But now that Snowden left the US, he must be an ex-patriot. The traditional response is an extradition request.

EliRivers3• 13 years ago

"The traditional response is an extradition request."

Which, if not met, is followed by a massive invasion and subsequent decade long occupation, judging by the Afghan fiasco. :)

jmadsen• 13 years ago

And a brilliant one! I gave you a point

Surio• 13 years ago

You reminded me of the old chestnut: One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter....

maneesh• 13 years ago

I don't get this pun---can you explain?

Skalman• 13 years ago

It's almost an anagram: patriot -> traitoP, so replace 'p' with 'r'. So the difference is literally the letters PR.

beedogs2• 13 years ago

What really pisses me off is that Democrats seem to support Obama in anything he does; half of them think this kind of shit is perfectly fine, likely because their team is the one doing it. Really sorely disappointing.

rquantz• 13 years ago

What are you talking about? Do you have any evidence for this? Or was it just some democrat you talked to who supported mass surveillance? You think the 30% of Americans who believe Snowden is a patriot are all non-democrats?

discostrings7• 13 years ago

http://www.people-press.org/files/2013/06/6-10-13-4.png

rexf• 13 years ago

WSJ writes:

"A survey ... found that 56% believe that broad-based government tracking of telephone records is acceptable ... More Democrats than Republicans found it acceptable, a reversal of findings in a similar poll taken when George W. Bush was president ..."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732490400457853...

beedogs2• 13 years ago

From a Gallup poll.

Democrats are more likely to approve of the surveillance programs (49-40 percent), which Republicans (32-63 percent) and independents (34-56 percent) largely disapprove.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/305181-gall...

nextstep• 13 years ago

Yeah, that's absolutely true. And the other half has John McCain and Lindsey Graham saying they're ok with it and they think these programs are necessary. We have two parties, and zero choices. Our country is fucked.

jstanley2• 13 years ago

Reminds me of this extract from a Simpsons episode: http://www.flickr.com/photos/giddygirlie/2987270819/

nknighthb• 13 years ago

Democrats seem to support Obama in anything he does; half of them think this kind of shit is perfectly fine

Did you really not recognize the contradiction even as you typed this sentence?

tripzilch4• 13 years ago

half of them think this kind of shit is perfectly fine

Did you read the article all the way through? At the end it mentions that only 6% of all Americans think this is perfectly fine.

Shish2k• 13 years ago

In the vein of "90% of everything is shit", 90% of political supporters are sheep -- the important part to remember is that this applies to your own team as well as the opposition.

More Americans see man who leaked NSA secrets as 'patriot' than traitor

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