
57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents - 1337biz
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2013/57_fear_government_will_use_nsa_data_to_harass_political_opponents
======
Millennium
You will, no doubt, find plenty of people who trust Obama to not do this.
You'll find plenty of people who would have trusted Bush, and you'll even find
a lot of people who don't trust either one of them. But there's a fourth
corner to that square, and I don't think you'd find many people in it at all:
people who would trust both Bush and Obama with data like this.

That's the thing about governments: people have successors. People like Bush
and Obama have been elected before, and given enough time, people like them
will be elected again. Trusting one administration with a given power means
trusting all future administrations, sight unseen, with that same power, and
that is rarely a sane thing to do.

~~~
wonderyak
The other problem -- despite the changing of the guard in the Executive branch
-- other branches and workers stay the same.

~~~
SkyMarshal
Exactly.

I find it confounding how people are still attributing this stuff to
Presidents when it should be obvious by now it's not the elected officials
running this show. They're being led along by an entrenched bureaucracy with
its own goals and agenda, no term limits, and with the ability to shape the
world view and hence decisions of our elected officials by what information
they choose to provide or withhold.

Stop talking about this in terms of Bush or Obama, Republican or Democrat. The
problem transcends any one elected individual or even political party.

~~~
bcoates
This simply isn't true. Obama ran on being Bush's third and fourth terms and
that's what we got. The two of them have been a radical departure from
previous administrations. Two presidencies does not make an immutable law of
nature.

Recent political events have demonstrated just how autonomous the President
is, there is no reason to think there is some sort of hidden power at play
here.

If anything we need a stronger and more professional bureaucracy that's less
eager to help the President break the law.

~~~
SkyMarshal
_> This simply isn't true. Obama ran on being Bush's third and fourth terms
and that's what we got._

No, he ran on the exact opposite - being the anti-Bush. Maybe you saw through
that are remembering what you perceived instead.

And there's no "hidden power" in so far as the Federal bureaucracy is anything
but hidden. Secretive maybe, but not hidden.

 _> If anything we need a stronger and more professional bureaucracy that's
less eager to help the President break the law._

Agreed. That would be ideal. There are elements of it, but it's not universal.

~~~
mpyne
Well let's be fair, they _both_ ran on some part by being "not Bush". The GOP
couldn't find a corner dusty enough to stick GWB in during that election
cycle.

------
asolove
I think this is a much more effective method of getting people to reject
snooping. Saying "the government can track metadata about who you call" is not
very scary.

But make it more concrete and you get some scary statements:

\- The government can use phone call metadata to build a list of all people
who likely own firearms and are gun enthusiasts and pro-gun rights.

\- The government can use phone call metadata to build a list of all women who
likely have had abortions or use contraception.

\- The government can use phone call metadata to build lists of likely members
of each religious group, and their respective social networks.

Now there's something for everyone to oppose!

~~~
threeseed
Sorry but is this the kind of paranoid stupidity I should start to expect from
HN now ?

The "government" has been able to collect far more data via the tax and health
care systems, TSA, census etc for decades. Imagine all the scary statements I
could contrive from those. Or how about we amp up the crazy and talk about all
the things the "government" could be doing with their drones and satellites.

~~~
halorhodopsin
well, it's not really paranoid stupidity. these resources were used against
the Occupy movement. if you look at the 70's, COINTELPRO was created to squash
domestic dissenting groups such as the Black Panthers, to great effect.

our government is perfectly fine with suppressing dissent, and the fate of the
Occupy movement shows this - a government would not use undercover police,
agent provocateurs, destabilizing tactics, etc. if they tolerated dissent. in
my city, the local police intentionally broke up homeless camps and moved them
near or into the Occupy tent camp, straining the Occupy resources. Then, when
the homeless people inevitably did drugs or were publicly intoxicated in the
camp, the police came in and started arresting people left and right for drug
possession, intoxication, etc. this did a fantastic job of breaking up our
local protest.

~~~
coldtea
> _well, it 's not really paranoid stupidity. these resources were used
> against the Occupy movement. if you look at the 70's, COINTELPRO was created
> to squash domestic dissenting groups such as the Black Panthers, to great
> effect._

And tons of other similar programs. Like this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird)

What's "paranoid" (== isolated in a private little world and ignoring facts)
is to ignore or downplay such things, as the parent does.

If not total naiveness, it's a classic case of "la la la la la hands in the
ears" denial.

As Gore Vidal put it: " _Americans have been trained by media to go into
Pavlovian giggles at the mention of 'conspiracy' because for an American to
believe in a conspiracy he must also believe in flying saucers._"

As if governments all other the world, throughout history, didn't conspire
against dissidents. And as if secret services weren't created for this very
reason exactly.

~~~
comefrom10
> As Gore Vidal put it: _" Americans have been trained by media to go into
> Pavlovian giggles at the mention of 'conspiracy' because for an American to
> believe in a conspiracy he must also believe in flying saucers."_

While we're on that subject:

There's a very interesting video about 9/11 that every American really,
really, really should watch put out by a group called Architects & Engineers
for 9/11 Truth.

"9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg)

------
wicknicks
Fun science fact: _Fear causes people to think irrationally._

I find it hard to believe that so many people have jumped out of their wits
over this NSA news. After all, there are so many more harder and pressing
problems in the world. Global Warming, Child Slavery, Drugs, overpriced health
care, mortgage and education loans? But on HN, the most intellectual community
I am part of (imo) is so worried about automated programs parsing through
their mails and tweets, its surprising. Dude, wake up! Your content is NOT so
cool. Its like everybody else's -- emails from mom telling you missed on
events, defaulting on payments, failures in relationships, failure in school.
Everybody goes through those things, and have records to show it.

When I see an article with the title that makes me believe that a bunch of
scared folks are now going to set decision making processes for the future, it
makes me worried. Very worried. Such community moods have been known to make
the worst choices (always conservative than progressive) for the future
generations. Today, people complain about the war US took to Iraq, and what a
bad decision that was. Five years from now, it will be privacy policies that
were set in, after "57% FEARED NSA will misuse their personal info."

Is privacy important -- yes, it is. But should we blow things out of
proportion? No. That's never going to lead to a better world.

~~~
riggins
_Fear causes people to think irrationally._

this is the most amazing thing I've read all day. someone using the argument
that 'fear causes people to think irrationally' to justify government
snooping.

Let's step back to base principles. What's the claimed reason for snooping? To
stop terrorists.

How much of a threat are terrorists? If you think about it rationally, not
very much.

10K per year die from drunk driving. That's three 9/11's per year. You
wouldn't consider allowing the government to filter your facebook and email
for strings like 'i've been drinking, now I'm driving', so why would you allow
that for a much smaller problem?

Here's something else to think about rationally. Stop and look around the
world and history. Have terrorists caused more deaths and taken away more
individual rights than governments? I'd say its governments by an enormous
margin (I'm not talking about the US govt by itself, although I bet if you dug
up all the stuff like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment you might get close
even in the US).

We're graced with relatively good government in the US but you don't have to
look too hard around the world (Iran, Syria, Saudia Arabia, Afganistan
pre-9/11, Rwanda, Bosnia) to see that it's perfectly rational to be wary of
government power (its even more obvious if you consider historic examples like
the Soviet Union, Nazis, Armenian).

tl;dr it's irrational to fear terrorists, ergo no need to sacrifice your civil
liberties

~~~
wicknicks
You are taking my statements out of context. Almost all my comment talks about
HN's reaction to the NSA news. Did I support collecting data from social media
websites? No. In fact, if you look at my reply to @Uhhrrr on this thread, you
will notice that I mentioned that no org (political or business) should misuse
personal information.

------
curt
People seem to forget that democracy and freedom are relatively new to the
world. The Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago, many European countries have
been free for less than 40 years. Don't take freedom for granted, it's not the
steady state system, tyranny is.

I'm sorry to say but a lot of countries will degrade back to authoritarianism
within the next 10-20 years due to economy and political problems.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

~~~
icebraining
Since we're quoting Franklin, this one is also relevant:

 _(...) I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of
government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and
I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course
of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it,
when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government,
being incapable of any other._

~~~
crusso
The USA has been like a successful startup. The first people in were the
superstars who had vision and made things happen. The next arrivals were
strong performers not scared of hard work who could at least understand the
vision and keep the momentum going.

Eventually at any new successful company, the hangers-on arrive. The "work
hard, play hard" mantra that drove the first generations gives way to just a
"play hard" one. The benefits created by the original visionaries are siphoned
off mercilessly by those who didn't create them, can't create anything new,
and don't seem to care that they're so destructive. With the decline of the
company and jerks in power, anyone worth a damn goes elsewhere to find a
better environment or if they do stay they tend to work around the system to
get their jobs done or just content themselves operating at 1/4 speed for a
paycheck. As more good people leave because of frustration, a death spiral
ensues since upper management clowns no longer have anyone who can problem
solve.

We had a nice run. It's really too bad that we lost our way as a nation.

~~~
brown9-2
This is a poor analogy when you consider that people don't live for hundreds
of years and thus there is no such thing as "hangers-on" arriving to a
country.

It also ignores all of the things that the founders did that we find
reprehensible today (slave-owning), along with how far this country has come
racially and in regards to civil rights in the past 50 years.

It also ignores the fact that the size of the US economy has never been
larger, and whatever "decline" you are referring to is purely subjective and
mostly rosy retrospection.

I wonder what it is about the USA that has made this type of "our good run is
over, oh well" sentiment popular for several generations. People have been
making complaints like this for several hundred years in this country.

~~~
dragonwriter
> People have been making complaints like this for several hundred years in
> this country.

People have been making complaints like this for several _thousand_ years, in
pretty much every country. I suspect that its largely because people tend to
see things in an overly optimistic way as children and progressively see more
of the messy bits as they mature, and this creates a common impression
(irrespective of the truth) that things are actually _getting_ worse, and this
is magnified by people trying to advance agendas by demogoguery centering
around the idea of a past happier age created by exaggerating positive
qualities and ignoring negative ones of the past.

~~~
hobs
"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous
youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I
was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the
present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"
(Hesiod, 8th century BC).

~~~
crusso
I love quotes from old dead societies that show us how worries that our
society is degrading are unfounded.

------
w_t_payne
There is of course, the ultimate litmus test: Would you trust Nixon with this
data?

~~~
mindcrime
_There is of course, the ultimate litmus test: Would you trust Nixon with this
data?_

Also: "Would you trust J. Edgar Hoover[1] with this data?"

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover)

------
Steko
Hey look a push poll from Scott Rasmussen. Shouldn't he be working on
President Romney's reelection?

[http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmusse...](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-
polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/)

[http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/which-
po...](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/which-polls-fared-
best-and-worst-in-the-2012-presidential-race/)

~~~
d23
Yeah, I've stopped caring much about what the general populace thinks about
issue X since they seem to mostly just respond with what they think they
_should_ say.

------
knowaveragejoe
Couldn't techniques typically used for finding moles be used to test this?
Astroturf a politically antagonistic group with carefully crafted information
and see what happens. Similar to inserting random strings into documents with
each distributed copy in order to later find who leaked their copy.

Either the NSA(or whomever) would have to be incredibly careful in using the
information to some end, or they would abstain from using it at all. I'm not
sure the benefits would outweigh the risks here.

~~~
jessaustin
Don't assume that the NSA's primary goal is to collect factual information.

------
splitrocket
I'd imagine that 100% of politicians are afraid the NSA will harass them if
they opposed the NSA.

------
skaevola
Given the recent IRS scandal, I'm surprised the number isn't higher.

------
coldtea
> _57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents_

"Feat that it Will"??????? It already does.

------
patrickmay
> 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

The other 43% know it will.

~~~
shill
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

------
yyqux
Alternative title: "American public paranoid, susceptible to leading survey
questions".

------
josephlord
Opponents of a particular party or those of the NSA/Security state?

I wonder if the fears match the reality.

------
trekky1700
A recent poll found 20% of Republicans think Obama's the antichrist...

------
fnordfnordfnord
I don't trust Rassmussen even when his polls say what I want them to.

------
ttrreeww
Only 57%? We are doomed.

------
general_failure
(I am not an american)

OK, so obama approves all this today. Don't you guys think he has the common
sense to think that he will be a target tomorrow himself when he is no longer
president? His wife and kids and their families?

Such things are definitely to worry about in dictatorial countries but nothing
to be 'paranoid' about in democracies. While I don't condone the government
for monitoring data, I will have to 'respect' their decision if they think
it's the way to go about providing security. After all, they were elected by
the people and people have to trust them for their brains.

The whole prism thing is completely blown up because media has nothing else to
talk about right now. It's just waiting for another news to happen and
everyone will move on.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Don't you guys think he has the common sense to think that he will be a
> target tomorrow himself when he is no longer president? His wife and kids
> and their families?

That depends on whether or not we think that he and his family will be
beholden to the same rules as everyone else.

Many of us would argue that that is a faulty assumption.

~~~
general_failure
But a smart person is bound to think that this will happen to him tomorrow
_regardless_ of the state today. If you were the president, wouldn't you think
you are prone to surveillance despite being president today? I definitely
would. I know that when my time is up anything can happen to me. Future
presidents can repeal all sorts of powers the same way I as president did.

