“A majority of U.S. registered voters consider Edward Snowden a whistle-blower, not a traitor, and a plurality says government anti-terrorism efforts have gone too far in restricting civil liberties, a poll released today shows,” Jonathan D. Salant reports for Bloomberg.
“Fifty-five percent said Snowden was a whistle-blower in leaking details about top-secret U.S. programs that collect telephone and Internet data, in the survey from Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University,” Salant reports. “hirty-four percent said he’s a traitor. Snowden, 30, worked for McLean, Virginia-based federal contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp.”
Salant reports, “The poll also showed that by 45 percent to 40 percent, respondents said the government goes too far in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terrorism. That was a reversal from January 2010, when in a similar survey 63 percent said anti-terrorism activities didn’t go far enough to protect the U.S. from attacks, compared with 25 percent who disagreed.”
“‘The massive swing in public opinion about civil liberties and governmental anti-terrorism efforts, and the public view that Edward Snowden is more whistle-blower than traitor, are the public reaction and apparent shock at the extent to which the government has gone in trying to prevent future terrorist incidents,’ said Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac’s polling institute,” Salant reports.
MacDailyNews Take: “Trying to prevent future terrorist incidents,” sure. But, is that all they’re doing or is that just a convenient excuse?
Salant reports, “The view of Snowden as a whistle-blower rather than traitor predominated among almost every group of respondents broken down by party, gender, income, education and age. Black voters were the lone exception, with 43 percent calling Snowden a traitor compared with 42 percent saying he was a whistle-blower… The poll showed both Democrats and Republicans about evenly divided on whether government counter-terrorism measures have become excessive. Independent voters view the methods as having gone too far by 49 percent to 36 percent… The poll showed that men, by 54 percent to 34 percent, see the government as having gone too far in its efforts while women, by 47 percent to 36 percent, said the measures haven’t gone far enough. ‘It would be naive to see these numbers as anything but evidence of a rethinking by the public about the tradeoffs between security and freedom,’ Brown said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “David G.” for the heads up.]
This article will be removed by the NSA in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1……
Nah, if the NSA wanted us to think of him as a traitor, we would. This just keeps their narrative out there and keeps everyone distracted while the REAL deal is still unknown.
Wait, first not enough, then too far, make up your mind people.
I have nothing to hide, they can spy on me all they want. I say he’s a traitor.
Then you’re wrong, stupid and un-American.
If the NSA, and the private contractors they hire, can. Read anyone’s email (texts, chats, Skype calls, SkyDrive, etc, etc.), and if they are unsupervised and accountable to no one (and it turns out that’s the case) then they hold all the power in this “democracy”.
NSA is again organization or terrorist organization. Take your pick, both really. The US goverent has become the Soviet Union that we supposedly fought against and the terrorist have already won since I can’t take a water bottle or shoes onto a plane, and they have to bathe me in X-rays every time I want to fly, and yet they won’t profile.
Now every communication or action I do anywhere with anyone is subject to unwarranted unconstitutional searches. But don’t worry, we are ‘safe’!
Safe from what exactly? I would feel far safer near the hero Snowdrn than anyone from CIA, NSA, or FBI.
Hey dipshit, being wrong and stupid is just about as American as anyone can get, and you just proved your citizenship.
: )
I think this whole story polarizes too much. I think what Snowden did was to expose something that he felt right in doing. He isn’t looking to harm the government and I don’t think the NSA is looking to harm the general public.
In this age of terrorism, one must learn to stay ahead of the enemy and being able to intercept and monitor electronic communications is key.
How else can the U.S. defend against terror networks or countries like China that are actively looking on how to disrupt American telecommunications and technology?
I think the U.S. should give Snowden a full pardon and learn how to institute its programs better.
The NSA is looking to control the public. As ordered.
You have nothing to hide. What a moron. Go read the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
Having nothing to hide is not the issue.
The issue is that what you, or we, do is not the Governments business. We are allowed to do any legal thing we like and they don’t even have a right to know. They don’t have a right to infiltrate our organizations, they don’t have a right to know who we talk to, they don’t have a right to know which library books we read and they don’t have a right to know which web sites we visit (neither does Google).
These freedoms are as much a Constitutional right as those guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Yet we get all pissy if the Government even wants to make sure we’re not a felon before we buy a gun. And the same people who send their money to the NRA to protect gun marketing get all crazy every time the ACLU tries to protect the rest of the rights in the Constitution. I guess prying a court filing from ones cold dead hands just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
The point is that the Government does things in secret, sometimes for good reason. Keeping the secret activities in check and legal is hard and the Congress clearly isn’t up to the task. The actions of people like Snowden are necessary to inform the American people so we have the knowledge required to demand Congress get off their overpaid asses and do their jobs.
Please consider this. While you may not be doing anything that you want to keep from the Government of today, you never know about the Government of tomorrow.
Why does it matter what the polls say?
Polls just tell us what the people think. The president, congress and the NSA aren’t accountable to the American people anymore.
Not only they are not accountable any more, they are persecuting whistle-blowers and keeping them as political prisoners.
The guy who disclosed torture practices is now in jail. But those authorities who committed illegal, criminal (both according to domestic and international law, which has higher power) actions — torture — are free.
Horrid practices of illegal Iraq war were disclosed by Bradley Manning, and he was subjected to torture for almost nine months (it was solitary confinement, no clothes, sleep deprivation at nights with lights turned on, he was forced to be naked and observed for 24/7, and even glasses were taken away), and kept for three years in jail without a trial, and now accused of espionage even though Manning obviously never shared any secrets with foreign intelligence agencies, nor there was any actual harm from his actions. Now judge has forbid evidence of lack of harm, as well as evidence for his motives. This all is done to jail him for life.
Edward Snowden faces the same fate if he will be caught by the authorities. He will be another political prisoner for life.
Remember the definition of whistle-blower: it is a person who uncovers illegal actions of the government. There is protection for such cases, but, of course, the government abuses its power and punishes the whistle-blowers, and not those among themselves who commit the crimes.
Both Manning and Snowden are accused of sharing information with Al Qaeda by leaking it through Wikileaks or Guardian/Washington Post. Al Qaeda has Internet, you know? This is how it is “espionage” and this is how it is going to be not just few years for the leaks per se, but a life sentence.
The three examples I mentioned are purely abusive regime practices. And USA, unfortunately, became Orwellian, totalitarian regime.
Here is video that describes the torture which was totally useless and broke both USA’s and international law:
The US government now has the constitution printed on their toilet paper rolls. It’s disgusting that this country has become. Bin Ladin won and we have lost.
At least its better than going to war and spending trillions of dollars… for what?
Osama once said he was going to win the war by bankrupting america, and he nearly has done that, look at our deficit now, all in the name of war on terror.
Ignorance always has a way of revealing itself during discussions like this.
The US government has been engaged in deficit spending since LBJ’s “War on Poverty”. Social exceeds defense spending since then, to accomplish what? There are more people collecting welfare in Chicago and Detroit than there are people working. Nationally the percent of people living “in poverty” is higher today than in 1963, the year before LBJ took office.
Our current economic state is the result of Congress forcing lending to those that didn’t otherwise qualify (Community Reinvestment Act 1998), and now Obama’s Healthcare system is destined to quickly exceed defense spending.
Osama and his ilk aren’t going to bankrupt the US anymore than Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (PIIGS). It will be the spending practices of a liberal dominated government that does it.
I see the liberals have weighed in and rejected the facts once again.
Actually, deficit spending goes further back than LBJ. The criminal Democrat FDR put us in the hole with his New Deal and then the outrageous War on Hitler. The liberals will be the end of Amerika as we’d like to believe it ever existed.
Actually, deficit spending goes further back than FDR. Alexander Hamilton believed that deficit spending by getting loans from other countries would protect the fledgling USA because then the countries that government owed money to would have incentive to help it remain intact. He believed a lot of other things, too.
I don’t mind the spying if it is for good reason as a whole. We have terrorists that are going to use technology as a means to communicate, organize, and get the info they need to carry out their plans. So for defense, we have to keep up inside that technology. If spying saves thousands or even hundreds of lives due to early detection of plots I don’t care if they do it. If security personnel read my boring eMails, chats, and whatever, I’m OK with that because I’m more concerned with the big picture and am certain I have nothing of interest to them. If me giving up a bit of privacy saves lives, go for it. BUT I wouldn’t want just any employee of these companies having access to the info. I’m sure there are trigger words and targeted people anyway, doubtful each correspondence isn’t studied with a microscope.
With that opinion said, I have to add that with all their spying, the Government Security doesn’t seem to be using the info they have gathered intelligently. As with the Boston tragedy. They had info but did not follow up with what they had.
So you would throw away our democracy for the sake of saving a few hundred, or a few thousand lives?
That’s not the America I knew.
Terrorism isn’t an existential threat to democracy. An unaccountable government is by definition the end of democracy.
Devil’s Advocate–
Put to you, if “saving the democracy” meant your family had to die but you could live, would you still be in favor of saving it _at all costs_? What would be an acceptable cost in lives to maintaining democracy? Up to, say, half the population?
If I put my family before our democracy, I’d be the traitor.
Why don’t we ask the founding fathers if they would put their families lives at risk for a democratic future?
We didn’t throw away everything to defend ourselves against the Soviet Union, and they really were an existential threat. Terrorism is just that, terror. They can cause damage and misery to a few hundred or a few thousand. Only we can dismantle “America” — and sadly that’s exactly what we’ve done.
The founders did not give us a “Democracy”, they gave us a “Constitutional Republic”. There is a HUGE difference between the two. Under a Democracy, the attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, without restraint or regard to consequence. Under a Constitutional Republic, the attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. Unfortunately, an apathetic (or is it pathetic) citizenry surrendered our Republic decades ago.
“We didn’t throw away everything to defend ourselves against the Soviet Union”
So, empirically, how many lives should be expected to be lost in the name of democracy? Half? 75%
“Only we can dismantle “America” — and sadly that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Sooo, I don’t have to pay taxes, I won’t be called up for jury duty and no more elections? If not, then which part of democracy did we dismantle?
How many lives were lost in the revolution to establish the country in the first place? In WWII?
It’s worth at least that many lives.
So are you volunteering to be the next to be taken out for the cause of sacrifice?
I agree with Devil’s Advocate, and like I said, if some from National Security need to check, fine, but access to the info should be tight, not open to a multitude of lower level employees.
if you have nothing to hide, then give out your passwords to all your online services.
That is a clever retort, but that extreme is obviously not the same comparison. I said I didn’t expect EVERYONE to have access to info as in your reply, but if trigger words are followed up on by upper authorized security people who have special government clearance I have no problem with that at all.
As for the MDN take and quote from Ben Franklin. Yes that’s a great flashy quote to throw around until it’s YOUR child, brother, wife, best friend, etc. that is being lowered into the grave. Then you’d be crying “Why didn’t use every means possible that we obviously have access to in 2013 to investigate and stop this terror plot before it became a killing zone!”
We can’t stop terrorism any more than we can stop theft or murder. Even if these measures could successfully prevent attacks, we can’t throw away our founding principles for that small amount of additional safety.
Yes we can. We’ve intercepted and stopped some planned attacks already.
America’s own corporations make all terrorists added together look like a bunch of sunday-school picnickers. The tobacco industry alone has KNOWINGLY killed astronomically more Americans than all acts of terror combined — and continues to do so every month. How many people are killed by how many other companies producing various poisonous or dangerous products? Talk about misdirected effort.
So do nothing eh? Good plan.
Nothing like being sarcastic about something a person didn’t say.
No, not “do nothing”. But what I AM saying is to get some perspective and stop spending such astronomical amounts of money to supposedly stop the relatively tiny number of deaths due to terrorism. Get that spending into PROPORTION and do much more to save all the enormously greater number of people being killed EVERY MONTH by American corporations.
1. By what means? Sounds like it wasn’t through these programs. Just good old-fashioned police work.
2. If we have to give up our basic principles to save a few dozen people now and then, it’s not worth it.
3. What about Boston???
1. Your opinion of it.
2. If it is your own child, spouse, or parent killed let’s still see if your spouting it’s not worth it.
3. I stated elsewhere here that they were idiots in the Boston case.
I’m with MDN and Ben Franklin on this. Beginning with the lack of outrage over the warrantless wiretapping in the Bush administration, I believe that the American people have failed to exercise proper control of their government’s surveillance programs. If the NSA can spy on the activities of Americans – like the church police do the ordinary citizens of Iran – then the terrorists have won.
And was approved and continued by Obama.
So with 2 different Presidents allowing this, each one of opposing sides, doesn’t that make some of you think that maybe the bigger picture they are privileged see due to their high security status means this level of spying involvement in communication access is necessary for producing the best National Safety? Not talking about abuse of it they need to run it right and concentrate on terrorism plots that we know are bubbling up here.
Oddly enough that’s about the same percentage of citizens employed by the U.S. Govt…
You have to wonder what personal info Snowden has. These days seems n one cares about the mores and ethics of a politician unless it is a Republican who transgresses. Still wonder why Spitzer wasn’t prosecuted for his crimes. Violation of the Mann act I believe is a federal crime, I believe.
And to think I was worried! Now that we all know where a majority of its citizens, I’m sure the representational democratic government of the United States is going to quickly and efficiently fulfill the will of the people!
Lost in all this is the real question that was posed. Is Snowden a whistle blower? I agree that we need to preserve our liberties, and I am close to being a libertarian, but if Snowden is a whistle blower, why did he take this to our enemies, who are bound to destroy us, instead of to every news organization in the country. Instead, his actions hurt us, not just our government. He could have taken actions that would help get illegal actions by our government officials stopped without doing irreparable harm to our nation.
Snowden’s first and only release of information was through the Guardian, a UK newspaper. Is the UK now the enemy in your twisted mind?
Not sure why personal insults are your weapon of choice, but I would disagree that he only went to the UK Guardian. He went to our enemies in person. Looks like you could think about this without the ranker.
Unless the Guardian changed from a news organization into to an axis of evil nation without anyone but you noticing, going to the press is EXACTLY what Snowden did. Every Snowden leak has been leaked publicly to news organizations – not one nation or terrorist group is claiming they received leaks from Snowden.
I hope you wise up because there’s way, way, too many ignorant bastards in the world.
You say I should wise up, and yet because China, Soviet Union didn’t claim to receive leaks from Snowden, you conclude that he didn’t tell them anything. I guess you trust them more than us. That is really ignorant.
Where’s the evidence?
Just saying something is true because it has yet to be disproved is a passtime for fools. Nonignorant beliefs demand evidence.
Since this is an opinion forum, and not a court of law, we are allowed to express our opinions, especially based on the facts. Facts like traveling to our known enemies and seeking refuge. It would be foolish not to consider that as a strong possibility.
Just saying something is NOT true because it has yet to be proved is a passtime for fools. Nonignorant beliefs demand evidence.
I suppose you must be a devout believer of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Flying Spaghetti monster (sauce be upon him), and Russell’s celestial teapot. Must all be really logical in your world view, where only fools dismiss ideas when there’s no evidence to prove or disprove them.
I guess you are admitting that you dismiss all ideas where there is no evidence to prove or disprove them. You might want to rethink that comment.
I stand by it. Any idea without evidence to prove or disprove is a just wild guess based on nothing and should be dismissed as such.
The ability to believe any unsubstantiated idea thrust upon you does not make you open minded – it makes you gullible. True open minded is the ability to change your mind every time reality proves you wrong.
When people believe in wild guesses, they are almost always wrong. When wild guesses are thrown around about crimes, everyone can be assumed guilty and all of society suffers.
I agree with you Pedro, and wanted to add that too many Americans are brainwashed by the left-wing state run media in this country.
The majority of people don’t seem to understand the situation— Snowden being a whistle-blower regarding a program which involves spying on many millions of Americans is to be commended. However, if he has handed over any national secrets to our enemies, then for that, he is a traitor, and should be dealt with severely.
Why is Snowden on the run? I thought the government LOVED whistle-blowers! Until they are blowing the whistle on government, I guess!
I thought Liberals liked ‘fighting the Man’ protesters, especially all those Liberals whose youthful informative years were the 60’s. Until Liberals of the 60’s were now ‘The Man’ and they were being protested against by middle America who gathered and called themselves The TEA Party. To which the ‘Give Peace a Chance’ crowd did everything to vilify, condemn and accuse of being racists! Again, Libs love protesting, until they are the ones being protested!
Finally, Is the plight of the NSA there because of Snowden or is Snowden’s plight there because of the NSA?
Anyone who is not open to the idea that Snowden is acting on behalf of the Government has already lost the thought experiment. Of course, that doesn’t make good television or garners ratings, though.
Huh???
Just saying, I don’t know Snowden any better than I know you, why should I assume either of you would tell the truth? I don’t think he’s a traitor or a hero, he’s just another guy doing what he’s been asked to do.
You’re absolutely right — The left-wing state run media has done everything in it’s power to vilify the Tea Party! They want you to believe they are a bunch of racist hicks from “flyover country”. And many brainwashed Americans actually believe it! Numerous Tea Party members are small business owners, and professionals like myself. I’ve been to several Tea Party rallies, and they are nothing like the press portray them to be. What we want is a government that spends within it’s means. What a radical idea to liberals!
And you have to understand, many of these liberal types from the 60’s are acid causalities!
“And you have to understand, many of these liberal types from the 60′s are acid causalities!”
Wow! So many bizarre, foundationless assumptions expressed in so few words.
The TEA Party is not middle America. They are the clueless puppets of a group ultra-conservative rich who are seeking to destroy middle America by impoverishing them.
I see you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed by the left-wing state run media in this country! You are SO brainwashed, you haven’t a clue. They want you to believe they are a bunch of racist hicks from “flyover country”. Numerous Tea Party members are small business owners, and professionals like myself. I’ve been to several Tea Party rallies, and they are nothing like the press portray them to be. What we want is a government that spends within it’s means. What a radical idea to liberals!
If you think your household or business budget process is the same as sound national government fiscal policy, then you are a hick, no matter what you do for a living.
No one said anything about government fiscal policy being the same as a household or a business. I said we want a government that spends within it’s means. Part of which is not borrowing 40 cents of every dollar and being $17 trillion in debt, oh brainwashed one. You are living proof that the left-wing media in this country is successfully brainwashing Americans.
“Living within its means” is code for “more revenue than spending.” That’s how you make a household budget.
Not sure why this is a subject for NDN, but I thought the guy was great when he was just letting his fellow American citizens know about the NSA spying on them, but when he started giving information about US intelligence gathering worldwide to other countries, he lost all credibility for me.
I’m glad that someone would step up and do something to help protect their countrymen, but, as creepy as it may seem, spying on other countries is part of how a government, any government, protects its citizens. Of course we spy on our allies, and they spy on us, its no surprise, and outing it just creates an awkward situation for all involved.
It is morons like you who are too stupid to understand the difference between spying on legitimate targets and hacking and saving the personal data phone calls emails and files of every citizen of the planet, including the US which IS CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL, you moron!
It is jackasses like you who make a Hitler possible.
This is all a bit more nuanced than is often presented. There would have been ways to approach members of congress who would have been sympathetic to Snowden’s position and could have followed through on this, and taken the heat, without releasing sensitive information. Further, no one is claiming anything illegal was done. It was approved and overseen by congress, including republicans and democrats, overseen by the courts, and used only when linked to a foreign source.
It is also clear that he did not commit treason. For an act to be treason, one must fight for or give aid and comfort to a declared enemy (as in a declaration of war) in front of two witnesses. Even the Rosenberg’s, who were convicted of espionage and executed, were not charged with treason.
Anyone else think pedro, RevDrX, are Currentinterest are the same person? They each posted the same unsubstantiated lies about Snowden, all at around the same time, and all gave their own post 5 stars.
Sorry, Currentinterest, I didn’t read your post that closely the first time – forget that I interluded you.
I am only representing myself. You think that when someone disagrees with you, it could only be one person? Wow. What an ego. You are acting as if you know what he said to foreign governments. You have no idea what he told foreign governments. You called them unsubstantiated lies. You go too far. They are unsubstantiated claims, but you also have no idea if they are true or not. It is a reasonable conclusion that he told them stuff. It is less reasonable that he didn’t.
You’re actually Inspector Clouseau. It makes so much sense now. Keep looking for clues.
So much for Obama’s broken promise of “transparency”. Obama knew exactly what the NSA was doing! Under Bush they only used the program to spy on suspected terrorists.
As for Snowden, most people don’t seem to understand — Snowden being a whistle-blower regarding a program which involves spying on many millions of Americans is to be commended. However, if he has handed over any national secrets to our enemies, then for that, he is a traitor, and should be dealt with accordingly.
Citizens of every stripe, we need to clean house inside the beltway and there are vermin that need a long permanent vacation from power and they come from both political parties, K street and the lapdogs of much of our “news” media.
Our civil liberties were not granted to us by the government- they are intrinsic to being human. No democratic government has the legal or moral right to grant them or revoke them. Any change to the basic rights of the people requires that INFORMED CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED and that has not happened.
What amazes me is how all of the media formed a chorus to assure Americans that is was no BFD and that our expectation of privacy was archaic because millions of idiots use shit like Facebook or sent pix of their junk by IM or SMS. What I would like to say right here is who elected the supposedly impartial media to become apologists and tools for the National Security State?
In a highly dysfunctional government where is is damn difficult to get pols to agree to name a Post Office we saw Senators and Representatives of every stripe and both parties line up to condemn a whistle blower who was duly alarmed at what our government was doing secretly in our name. That should set off alarms on anyone’s BS detector.
I figure that one day our government will get Mr Snowden and they will mistreat him as they have Bradley Manning and try him on a laundry list of trumped up bullshit. They will probably lock him up for most of what ever is left of his life at that time.
I hope that does not happen and I hope it pisses off all the wretched bastards in our government who think that they can wipe their backsides upon the rights of individual citizens starting with the bought and paid for moron in the White House. I hope Mr Snowden gets to park his pasty backside on some prime beach real estate and flip the bird to the drones or satellites that will watch his every move.
Something is very wrong with our government when the guy who outed the US using torture is in jail and the criminals in our government who committed the torture have been given a free pass.
I do not care what your politics- we did not vote for or authorize this.
The only mystery to me was that so many in the USA were surprised by this. The NSA has been out of control for most of its existence. An organisation run by paranoid megalomaniacs seeing demons in every corner. Of course it spies on you. It has done since it was set up.
Yes, but let’s remember that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do most everything.
Like a crazy
I must admit it’s sad to see, the first Afro-American president get “turned around” ( as in i aint gonna let etc) like all non-racist Americans there were tears in my eyes on that first inaugeration (sp?) day…but i was well aware that his Harvard/Un.Chicago “roots” would most likely…the normally civil liberty sensitive black community is going to have difficulty with this… The man most responsible for turning many non-Americans against this Country, George Bush is now more popular than presidident Obama… where he not black it might be worse. If that were the case the characterization of Edward Snowden as a whistleblower would approach or exceed 60%…Hey where are all the “false flag” promoters …things have gotten a little shakey…for the spooks.