

66% Believe Obama Administration 'Right' to Analyze and Collect Internet Data - 1337biz
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/66-believe-obama-administration-right-analyze-and-collect-internet-data_735401.html

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protomyth
Hold up one second, if you click on the pdf in the article
[http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2013/images/06/17/rel7a.pdf](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2013/images/06/17/rel7a.pdf)
and turn to page 5, you see "Government surveillance of U.S. citizens" \- 61%
Disapprove, 35% Approve, and 4% no opinion.

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pezh0re
Proving once again that people don't know what they think. I remember reading
somewhere that researchers were able to phrase questions on a survey such that
participants gave opposite answers to the same effective question (too bad I
can't seem to find that article on google).

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protomyth
For the most part, people do know what they think. On the other hand, some,
less honest, pollsters spend quite a lot of time getting folks to answer the
way they want from eliminating information or being hyper-techincal with the
questions.

If you're honest with yourself and ask the right questions, people will tell
you what they think. It might not be as logical as you want, but we live in a
fuzzy world.

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lettergram
What's the point in survey's of people that may or may not be a fair
representation of the populace? The point is it is against the constitution
and anyone who spends 10 minute reading the document will realize is against
the law (likely forming all the disapprovals).

Also the discrepancy in this survey (already pointed out in another post)
makes this survey pretty questionable.

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downandout
This poll is all over the place, which reflects the fact that this issue is
currently stuck in a weird place. The fact is that these programs are in
direct opposition with what most people believed were American ideals, and are
probably unconstitutional. However, Obama's liberal base is pretty rabid and
will basically stick with him regardless of what he does, and Republicans have
a natural inclination toward strong defense. Since NSA has associated these
programs with terrorism (although they go far beyond that), Republicans can't
come out strongly against them either. I will hand it to Obama's political
strategists: they have spun this in a way that their opposition cannot
meaningfully oppose them without betraying their own ideals.

Case in point, Question 17:

 _" Do you think the Obama administration has gone too far, has been about
right, or has not gone far enough in restricting people's civil liberties in
order to fight terrorism?"_

Too far 43% | About right 38% | Not far enough 17% | No opinion 1%

55% say it's either "not far enough" or "about right" \- while the same report
shows that 61% disapprove of "Government surveillance of American citizens".
The same question asked two different ways yielded vastly different responses.
The media (the majority of whom are Obama supporters) have managed to confuse
the public and make this less about the fact that a modern KGB has been built,
and more about whether or not people believe that Obama has good intentions
with these programs.

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jacques_chester
As usual in matters of politics, _Yes, Minister_ (specifically, _Yes, Prime
Minister_ ) got in there and explained it all decades ago:

[http://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA?t=22s](http://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA?t=22s)

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gwgarry
100% of opinions can be manufactured. Polls lie.

