Public attitudes have shifted against Edward Snowden, with more than half of Americans now supporting criminal charges against the former security contractor who’s disclosed details of surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency. And while most doubt that the NSA’s efforts enhance security, most also don’t see them as unjustified […] Read more »
Poll Shows Complexity of Debate on Trade-offs in Government Spying Programs
… While both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have labeled Mr. Snowden a traitor, the American public apparently disagrees. In a national poll from Quinnipiac University released Wednesday, voters said by 55 percent to 34 percent that he was a whistle-blower, not a traitor. The poll showed that the view […] Read more »
Public Opinion Shifts on Security-Liberty Balance
A new Quinnipiac poll has found a significant shift in public opinion on the trade-off between civil liberties and national security. … We generally caution against reading too much into a single poll result. But there are several reasons to think that the shift detected by the Quinnipiac poll is […] Read more »
Do You Wanna Know a Secret?
The revelation that the National Security Agency has been secretly amassing huge amounts of data about Americans’ phone and Internet use has sparked a lively debate about the proper role of secret information in a free and open society. … But there is a major problem with evaluating information labeled […] Read more »
‘Big Data’ threatens poll standards
Campaign polling is crossing over into dangerous territory as it meets “Big Data,” the latest craze in campaigning. … The hitch for political pollsters is that these new methods threaten to trample on privacy and confidentiality, as traditionally practiced by survey researchers. [cont.] David Hill (Hill Research Consultants), The Hill Read more »
Have we been Snowdened?
… Americans seem divided about Edward Snowden and, as in many situations in which opinions are weakly held, different questions produce different answers. [cont.] Mark Mellman (Mellman Group), The Hill Recent polls: Snowden, surveillance and security Read more »