Spying on citizens: 'It's called protecting America'

WashingtonPost

Published on Jun 6, 2013

 

Members of Congress and The White House are defending a top secret NSA program that continues to collect data from millions of phone records, but civil liberties supporters remain skeptical. The Post's Ellen Nakashima explains.

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CATO INSTITUTE

NSA Snooping: a Majority of Americans Believe What?

By

David Kirby

Yesterday, the Washington Post and the Pew Research Center released a joint poll that purportedly showed that “a large majority of Americans” believe the federal government should focus on “investigating possible terrorist threats even if personal privacy is compromised.” But a careful look at the poll shows citizens are far less sanguine about surrendering their privacy rights, as the facts continue to be revealed. Pollsters faced a difficult challenge—to accurately capture public opinion during a complex and evolving story. Recall, on Wednesday of last week, the story was about the NSA tracking Verizon phone records. So the pollsters drew up a perfectly reasonable and balanced question:

As you may know, it has been reported that the National Security Agency has been getting secret court orders to track telephone call records of MILLIONS of Americans in an effort to investigate terrorism. Would you consider this access to telephone call records an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism?

Fifty-six percent found this “acceptable.” Thus, the “majority of Americans” lead in the Washington Post. However, on Thursday, the Washington Post revealed explosive details about the massive data-collection program PRISM—and the public was alerted that the NSA was not just collecting phone records, but email, Facebook, and other online records. So the pollsters quickly drew up a new question, asked starting Friday, from June 7-9:

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Are there more spy revelations to come? America rages at NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and labels him a 'traitor'

Snowden facing prosecution in hiding as ex-girlfriend writes of being 'lost' without him

Washington was in disarray last night as it attempted to determine exactly how damaging revelations of secret intelligence snooping programmes might be to American national security, as anger at the whistleblower behind them, 29-year-old Edward Snowden, continued to harden. "He's a traitor," the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, declared. The laying bare of two surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency – and the prospect of more leaks possibly to come – had the US government scurrying in multiple directions; reassuring restive members of Congress, heading off growing complaints about the snooping activities from European allies and prioritising a nascent criminal investigation likely to lead to charges being filed against Mr Snowden. But while President Obama would love to get Mr Snowden in a courtroom, his administration is now facing its own legal battle. The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday filed a lawsuit arguing that its mass collection of private data is illegal and should be stopped, a move that could eventually end with the programme being tested in the Supreme Court. Top-level officials from NSA, FBI, the White House and State Department headed to Capitol Hill last night to give a behind-closed-doors briefing to the House of Representatives. They faced a likely barrage of questions about what, to some, looked like sloppy protection of secrets by the NSA. The puzzlement is all the greater because of the background of Mr Snowden, who may or may not still be in hiding in Hong Kong. He had access to NSA data as a contract worker employed by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, and the degree to which US intelligence agencies now rely on contract workers is now causing alarm. About a third of all those cleared to access classified materials last year were not government employees, the Washington Post said

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