[governance] Major opinion shifts on NSA surveillance and privacy

Wed Jul 31 23:54:33 EDT 2013

I think this may be of more general interest.

M

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-p
rivacy-pew>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-pr
ivacy-pew

Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and
privacy

Pew finds that, for the first time since 9/11, Americans are now more
worried about civil liberties abuses than terrorism

Glenn Greenwald

guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 July 2013 07.33 EDT

Numerous polls taken since our reporting on previously secret
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nsa> NSA activities first began have
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/snowden-seen-as-whistlebloweer-by-
majority-in-new-poll.html> strongly suggested major public opinion shifts in
<http://news.yahoo.com/polls-show-americans-still-bugged-nsa-surveillance-re
velations-141607421.html> how NSA surveillance and privacy are viewed. But a
<http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limits-on-nsa-surve
illance-program/> new comprehensive poll released over the weekend weekend
by Pew Research provides the most compelling evidence yet of how stark the
shift is.

Among other things, Pew finds that "a majority of Americans -- 56% -- say
that federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and
internet data the government is collecting as part of its anti-terrorism
efforts." And "an even larger percentage (70%) believes that the government
uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism." Moreover,
"63% think the government is also gathering information about the content of
communications." That demonstrates a decisive rejection of the US
government's three primary defenses of its secret programs: there is
adequate oversight; we're not listening to the content of communication; and
the spying is only used to Keep You SafeT.

But the most striking finding is this one:

[begin inset]

"Overall, 47% say their greater concern about government anti-terrorism
policies is that they have gone too far in restricting the average person's
civil liberties, while 35% say they are more concerned that policies have
not gone far enough to protect the country. This is the first time in Pew
Research polling that more have expressed concern over civil liberties than
protection from terrorism since the question was first asked in 2004."

[end inset]

For anyone who spent the post-9/11 years defending core liberties against
assaults relentlessly perpetrated in the name of terrorism, polling data
like that is nothing short of shocking. This Pew visual underscores what a
radical shift has occurred from these recent NSA disclosures:

pew NSA

Perhaps more amazingly still, this shift has infected the US Congress.
Following up on
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/25/democratic-establishmen
t-nsa> last week's momentous House vote -- in which 55% of Democrats and 45%
of Republicans defied the White House and their own leadership to vote for
the Amash/Conyers amendment to ban the NSA's bulk phone records collection
program -- the New York Times has
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/us/politics/momentum-builds-against-nsa-s
urveillance.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0> an article this morning which it
summarizes on its front page this way:

nyt nsa

The article describes how opposition to the NSA, which the paper says was
recently confined to the Congressional "fringes", has now "built a momentum
that even critics say may be unstoppable, drawing support from Republican
and Democratic leaders, attracting moderates in both parties and pulling in
some of the most respected voices on national security in the House."

It describes how GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner -- a prime author of the Patriot
Act back in 2001 and a long-time defender of even the most extremist War on
Terror policies -- has now become a leading critic of NSA overreach. He will
have "a bill ready when Congress returned from its August recess that would
restrict phone surveillance to only those named as targets of a federal
terrorism investigation, make significant changes to the secret court that
oversees such programs and give businesses like Microsoft and Google
permission to reveal their dealings before that court."

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren is quoted this way: "There is a growing sense
that things have really gone a-kilter here". Yesterday on This Week with
George Stephanopoulos, Democratic Sen Dick Durbin, one of Obama's closest
Senate allies,
<http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/07/28/2366691/chambliss-nsa-more-tra
nsparent/> said that the recently revealed NSA bulk record collection
program "goes way too far".

The strategy for the NSA and its Washington defenders for managing these
changes is now clear: advocate their own largely meaningless reform to
placate this growing sentiment while doing nothing to actually rein in the
NSA's power. "Backers of sweeping surveillance powers now say they recognize
that changes are likely, and they are taking steps to make sure they
maintain control over the extent of any revisions," says the NYT.

The primary problem enabling out-of-control NSA spying has long been the
Intelligence Committees in both houses of Congress. That's an ironic twist
given that those were the committees created in the wake of the mid-1970s
Church Committee to provide rigorous oversight, as a response to the
recognition that Executive Branch's surveillance powers were being radically
abused -- and would inevitably be abused in the future -- without robust
transparency and accountability.

But with a
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-white-house-should-end-the-bulk-
collection-of-americans-phone-records/2013/07/26/c3c0103e-f553-11e2-9434-604
40856fadf_story.html> few rare and
<http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/rush-holt-repeal-surveillance-sta
te-act.html> noble exceptions, the Intelligence Committees in both houses of
Congress are filled with precisely those members who are most slavishly
beholden to, completely captured by, the intelligence community over which
they supposedly serve as watchdogs. Many receive large sums of money from
the defense and intelligence industries.

There is a clear and powerful correlation between NSA support and amounts of
money received by these members from those industries, as
<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/> Wired's Dave
Kravets adeptly documented about last week's NSA vote and has been
<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/10/dem-pushing-spy/> documented
before with similar NSA-protecting actions from the Intelligence Committee.
In particular, the two chairs of those committees -- Democrat Dianne
Feinstein in the Senate and Republican Mike Rogers in the House -- are such
absolute loyalists to the NSA and the National Security State generally that
it is usually impossible to distinguish their behavior, mindset and comments
from those of NSA officials.

In sum, the Senate and House Intelligence Committees are the pure embodiment
of the worst of Washington: the corrupting influence of money from the very
industries they are designed to oversee and the complete capture by the
agencies they are supposed to adversarially check. Anything that comes out
of the leadership of those two Committees that is labeled "NSA reform" is
almost certain to be designed to achieve the opposite effect: to stave off
real changes in lieu of illusory tinkering whose real purpose will be to
placate rising anger.

But that trick seems unlikely to work here. What has made these disclosures
different from past NSA scandals -- including ones showing
<http://www.ibtimes.com/fisc-will-not-object-release-2011-court-opinion-conf
irmed-nsas-illegal-surveillance-1305023> serious abuse
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16nsa.html?pagewanted=all> of their
<http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/exclusive-inside-account-us-eavesdropping-ame
ricans/storynew?id=5987804> surveillance powers -- are the large numbers of
the NSA's own documents that are now and will continue to be available for
the public to see, as well the sustained, multi-step nature of these
disclosures, which makes this far more difficult for NSA defenders to
predict, manage and dismiss away. At least as much as they are shining
long-overdue light on these specific NSA domestic programs, the NSA
disclosures are changing how Americans (and
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/27/germany-nsa-surveillance_n_3663757
.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=World> people
<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10904351>
around the
<http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/brazilian-public-reacts-to-nsa-st
ories.html> world) think about the mammoth National Security State and
whether it can and should be trusted with unchecked powers exercised in the
dark. Those public opinion shifts aren't going to disappear as the result of
some blatantly empty gestures from Dianne Feinstein and Mike Rogers
masquerading as "reform".

Despite the substantial public opinion shifts, Pew found that Americans are
largely split on whether the NSA data-collection program should continue.
The reason for this is remarkable and repugnant though, at this point,
utterly unsurprising:

[begin inset]

Nationwide, there is more support for the government's data-collection
program among Democrats (57% approve) than among Republicans (44%), but both
parties face significant internal divisions: 36% of Democrats disapprove of
the program as do 50% of Republicans.

[end inset]

Just as Democrats went from vehement critics of Bush's due-process-free War
on Terror policies to
<http://www.salon.com/2012/02/08/repulsive_progressive_hypocrisy/> vocal
cheerleaders of Obama's drone kills and even Guantanamo imprisonments, the
leading defenders of the NSA specifically and America's Surveillance State
generally are now found among self-identified Democrats. That was embodied
by how one of the most vocal Democratic NSA critics during the Bush years --
Nancy Pelosi -- in
<http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/25/how_nancy_pelosi_saved_t
he_nsa_surveillance_program> almost single-handedly saved the NSA from last
week's House vote. If someone had said back in 2007 that the greatest
support for NSA surveillance would be found among Democrats, many would find
the very idea ludicrous. But such is life in the Age of Obama: one of his
most enduring legacies is transforming his party from pretend-opponents of
the permanent National Security State into its most enthusiastic supporters.

But despite that hackish partisan opportunism, the positive opinion changes
toward NSA surveillance and civil liberties can be seen across virtually all
partisan and ideological lines:

pew NSA

The largest changes toward demanding civil liberties protections have
occurred among liberal Democrats, Tea Party Republicans, independents and
liberal/moderate Republicans. Only self-identified "moderate/conservative
Democrats" -- the Obama base -- remains steadfast and steady in defense of
NSA surveillance. The least divided, most-pro-NSA caucus in the House for
last week's vote was the corporatist Blue Dog Democrat caucus, which
overwhelmingly voted to protect the NSA's bulk spying on Americans.

As I've repeatedly said, the only ones defending the NSA at this point are
the party loyalists and institutional authoritarians in both parties. That's
enough for the moment to control Washington outcomes -- as epitomized by the
unholy trinity that saved the NSA in the House last week: Pelosi, John
Bohener and the Obama White House -- but it is clearly not enough to stem
the rapidly changing tide of public opinion.

Other related matters

(1) I was on ABC's This Week with Stephanopoulos discussing our newest NSA
revelation coming this week about the actual surveillance powers of
low-level NSA analysts. That interview
<http://www.mediaite.com/tv/greenwald-claims-private-contractors-can-spy-on-
calls-emails-i-defy-nsa-officials-to-deny-these-capabilities/> be seen here.

(2) On Wednesday morning, I'll
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/glenn-greenwald-congress-nsa-surve
illance-programs_n_3660352.html> be testifying, by remote video, before an
ad hoc committee in the House of Representatives about NSA disclosures. It
begins at 9:30 am ET and will, I believe, be broadcast on C-SPAN. Following
my testimony will be an excellent panel featuring representatives of the
ACLU and the Cato Institute on the dangers and excesses of the NSA.

(3) At an event in Geneva over the week, Noam Chomsky was asked about Edward
Snowden and these NSA stories. The transcript of his response is
<http://antonyloewenstein.com/2013/07/29/chomsky-praises-snowden-and-condemn
s-us-hypocrisy/> here, and the video can be seen
<http://mondoweiss.net/2013/07/chomsky-says-snowden-should-be-honored-for-te
lling-americans-what-the-government-was-doing.html> here (it begins at
roughly 1:21:00). It's definitely worth reading or watching what he has to
say.

(4) If I had to pick the most astonishing aspect of this episode so far, it
would be that everyone now knows that the Obama administration's top
national security official, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper,
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130701/12494623683/james-clapper-admits-
he-lied-to-congress-even-his-excuse-is-misleading.shtml> outright lied to
the Senate about NSA programs. And yet -- as I said on ABC yesterday morning
-- not only isn't he being prosecuted for that crime -- as much of a crime
as anything Edward Snowden is accused of doing -- but he still has his job.
That, of course, is because
<http://us.macmillan.com/withlibertyandjusticeforsome/GlennGreenwald> the
"law" does not apply to high-level Washington officials and DC's National
Security State is
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/27/197823/us-allowed-italian-kidnap-pros
ecution.html> an accountability-free zone. But the law that makes Clapper's
behavior a felony is clear and concise, and can be read
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001> here.

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