“Lefty” bloggers, along with some libertarians, respond to the Washington Post-ABC News poll showing that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism:
Daily Kos lists ten “obvious and fundamental problems” that all Americans should worry about with the NSA database.
Firedoglike criticizes the Washington Post’s Richard Morin for polling the latest on NSA spying so quickly, “before people had a chance to digest the information.” [Assembling a list of telephone calls is spying?]
Lean Left maintains that this “is not about terrorism. It is about the creation of a surveillance state” and asks whether “want to live in something like a more efficient Soviet Union . . . ”
Enclave accuses the Bush Administration of “trolling through innocent people’s phone records using an ends-justifies-means rationale without sanction from a judge to do so.”
The American Street put up a post entitled “United Slaves of America.”
Homeland Stupidity avers that “Perhaps the most disturbing thing is the virtual non-reaction from the American public. It seems that most people don’t care if Big Brother watches them.”
Mode for Caleb ponders why “the popular faith in the government’s better “information” [is] so powerful as to be almost incorrigible?
DyrePortents wonders “what’s next on the privacy hit list and at what point will America say that enough is enough” and asks “Anyone for a constitutional ammendment guaranteeing a right to privacy yet?”
Comments from Left Field is “a little disappointed in the American people today” and says that “The implications of vast data collection on a free population are terrifying.”
Ezra Klein isn’t “terrifically surprised to see snap polls showing surprising support for the NSA’s latest step into Orwellian territory; his guess “is the public will look, over the next couple of weeks, for experts and pundits to give them cues on how to react.”
The Xoff Files asserts that “the terrorists have won” because “They have frightened people enough for Americans to voluntarily give up their right to privacy.”
Waveflux isn’t troubled “that there are fellow citizens foolish enough to not care that the NSA is tracking their every phone call.
TomPaine accuses the public of “apathy over basic privacy issues.”
Unclaimed Territory has a “hard time believing that [in] less than 24 hours, most Americans had informed themselves about what this program is, why it is a departure from past practices, and what are its potential dangers and excesses—let alone had an opportunity to hear from those who are opposed to the program explain why they are opposed to it.”
BoomanTribune laments the fact that “the Bush administration has succeeded in scaring the American people sufficiently that it is a difficult political position to take to stand up for our fourth amendment rights.”
Donkey o.d. inquires as to whether the public knows “it was their phone calls as well, not just that questioning ‘liberal’ neighbor that Limbaugh told them to hate?”
Dohiyi Mir proclaims that the “WaPo does its patriotic duty and carries water for the president’s illegal and un-American activities.”
The Left Coaster is worried that “In choosing which issues to use against this White House and the GOP in the fall campaign, those of us on the center-left must be prepared for the possibility that the country doesn’t see the NSA data mining and wiretapping programs with the same degree of alarm as we do.”
Taylor Marsh is worried, too: “we’re not going to win this argument if Democrats don’t stand up to [Bush’s] fear card.”
Political Animal says that the results of the poll are “depressing.”
Martini Republic points its finger at Congress: “The problem [is] that Congress—the reps of We The People—didn’t know it was going on.”
Bring It On! is “shocked that so many Americans seem to approve of the telecos sharing their phone records with the NSA,” asserts that “It’s too soon to expect their to be full understanding of the issue — the poll conducting the same day the story broke” and warns that it “has not seeped into national consciousness . . . that Bush has made every American a terror suspect.”
The Blogging of the President concludes that “two-thirds of Americans [have] willingly abandon[ed] their liberty and privacy” and that this “is a sad, frightening moment in our nation’s history.”
Hit and Run describes “Begging the government to tap phones and keep a database on every American to save us from the swarming Islamofascists” as “Bravery in action.”
Villainous Company is convinced that “we’re headed down the road to a dictatorship.”
The Carpetbagger Report echoes the sentiment that “the poll was taken just last night, about 12 hours or so after Americans first heard about the NSA program. Sometimes stories like this need time to sink in.”
None of their responses surprise me a bit. They didn’t get to “control” this poll. I’m sure they will come up with their own version shortly.
I say it again, “I don’t care if the government has records of my calls. I have nothing to hide.”
The media thinks….
....the new NSA story is a “bombshell”. The American people
The question that garnered the 63% “acceptable” response had a bias that could have affected the response:
The w/o qualifier places a bias on the question that may not be true and might possibly change responses if taken out. The fact that the same survey found that only 51% of those surveyed approve of the way Bush is handling protecting privacy rights supports that possibility. You failed to mention Bush’s lower number. We’ll see whether the 63% holds in future polls.
Nonetheless, I thought conservatives didn’t advocate governance by the polls? It’s usually a minority of people who advocate protection of people’s rights against government incursion, at least in the beginning, until the majority gets sick and tired of their loss of liberty.
Marc,
The quotes from my blog are taken totally out of context.
Officially my position is I have no problem with the data being collected it makes perfect sense under the current circumstances. However the fact that it was done with zero congressional oversite is my primary bone of contention. Approval should have been sought through the Senate Intelligence Comitte OR they should have been notified after the fact if it was done under the war time powers provision.