63% of Americans believe NSA wiretapping to be ok, page 1
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Topic started on 12-5-2006 @ 01:08 PM by Jakomo
Can this actually be accurate? It kind of flies in the face of everything I have heard from every American I know.

Kinda makes me feel maybe that 63% of Americans actually either DESERVE to give up their Constitutional rights one at a time, or that they have no idea what kind of doors this opens.

www.abcnews.go.com...

Radio host Howie Carr echoed the sentiments of many Americans when he said, "This is a big story in the lame-stream media, but this is not a story that generates with the American public. … The average person looks at the headline and says, 'I'm glad they're doing this.'"

On Capitol Hill, though, news that the NSA has been gathering massive records on phone calls met criticism from shocked members of both political parties.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., says he'll call the heads of the major phone companies to testify before Congress.


Although the question is a bit slanted, I suppose.

Is it okay for the government to track phone calls made by you and millions of other Americans?
Yes, if the government says it is necessary to fight terrorism.
No, it is not acceptable no matter what the government says .



Disappointing to say the least.


reply posted on 12-5-2006 @ 01:18 PM by Mainer
It was a phone survey, I was afraid to say I did not agree.



reply posted on 12-5-2006 @ 08:58 PM by darksided
The Pink Floyd reference applies 100% to this thread. What stuns me is how incredibly paranoid people have become, and how the media controls people so easily. The details of this program are in the open source, so I'm not sharing secrets here. I will break down the program reported in the USA Today for ya, since I was briefed on the details today.

In just about every fortune 500 company, sniffers are used to monitor networks, these sniffers are designed to provide audit logs and other information on IP networks, particularly large 1,000,000 node or more networks, like a large state government agency or large corporation.

The sniffers are filtering on 3 key details.

IP source
IP destination
data size

This type of software is in every major organization with 10,000 nodes or more, corporate or government. Why? For even the most mundane reasons, example.

Say a downlevel systems administrator discovers malware on a PC in a remote facility. He must now determine how widespread the infection is, not only within the original facility, but other facilities. Using a simple query, the admin can pull up the data on the source machine IP address, and use the data to investigate whether other machines were infected, primarily because now that admin knows which machines to check.

This NSA program does exactly the same thing for phone numbers. It records certain data based on filters, specifically:

source phone number
destination phone number
length of call

Now when a field agent gathers a phone number from a suspected terrorist, analyst can pull up the phone number of the suspect, and build a grid based on who that number has called, who has called that number, and the length of the calls. Obviously phone numbers with lots of calls with long call lengths would be important. This information can be turned back over to the agent, and the agent can seek a warrent for the information of the associated phone numbers using the data as evidence to convince the judge to deliver a warrent.

This program is actually the good program, at least the smart one, because it does not violate any laws at all, and it fits into the legal justification system established for FISA. It is why both political parties have known about this program, but haven't considered it a big deal, and can only capitalize on it while the media misinforms people regarding the details.

This whole episode isn't a freedom of privacy issue, it is a massive media manipulation issue, and this thread shows just how easily the American people can be duped.

Do people who are freaking out realize just how easily you are being manipulated based on ZERO facts and evaluation? How many IT perspectives have you actualy read before this one? Even DefenseTech, who tried to cover it from a network perspective, used an 'expert' with a masters in social networking, not IT Security.

It is truly sad how many Americans have become a population of drones, like the dkos crowd for example. It is equally sad that examples of drones can be found even on a website based on a healthy dose of skeptism in propaganda like this one.


reply posted on 12-5-2006 @ 09:17 PM by Sauron
I was reading this article this morning at Crooks and Liars, it explains how this poll was done. It's all Bushganda, IMHO


www.crooksandliars.com...

"Somehow, The Washington Post -- on the very same day most people learned about the new NSA data-collection program -- managed to conduct a poll which purports to show that "63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism." The reaction is painfully predictable. Bush followers are celebrating with glee, as though the issue is resolved in their favor and they won, while some Democrats are quivering with caution, urging that this issue be kept at arm's length lest they take a position that isn't instantaneously and overwhelmingly popular...read on



www.firedoglake.com...

The headline blazing across the Washington Post this morning reads: "Poll: Most Americans Support NSA’s Efforts."It was written by Richard Morin.

(Snip)

So before the phone records story even breaks, Morin — who knows absolutely what he is doing — starts polling people who have no idea what he’s talking about and giving it his best shot, tying it to the War on Terra. It works. Today it’s plastered across the front page of the washingtonpost.com

(Snip)

As eRiposte has noted, in a CBS/NYT poll earlier this year this was one of the questions posed.


In order to reduce the threat of terrorism, would you be willing or not willing to allow government agencies to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of ordinary Americans on a regular basis?


At that time 70% responded "no." A rather strong indication that a lot has to do with how these particular questions are worded.



[edit on 12/5/2006 by Sauron]
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