Nothing to fear but…

May 12, 2006

I think everyone wants to better understand how two-thirds of the public has no problem with a secret [tag]Bush[/tag] administration program that collects records of our domestic [tag]phone calls[/tag]. I talked about a couple of possibilities earlier, but let’s also consider the importance of the “[tag]fear[/tag]” element.

Last night, for example, [tag]Fox News[/tag]’ [tag]Neil Cavuto[/tag] noted the controversy and told his audience, “Yes, it is not great to necessarily hear they’re collecting our phone records, but it’s a heck of a lot better than collecting our remains.” It’s obviously a foolish remark from an unserious person, but it’s also a comment driven by fear — Cavuto is willing to give up civil liberties in the hopes that the government will keep him safer.

Tapped’s Michael Tomasky suggests the WaPo/ABC [tag]poll[/tag] results might be driven by Americans who are “still very, very scared of another terrorist attack,” and take a Cavuto-like attitude and say, “Hey, whatever it takes.”

This is a good thing for us to be reminded of, I guess. I almost never think about the possibility of another terrorist attack, and it doesn’t seem to me that anybody I know does either. And I and most of the people I’m talking about live in a city that was attacked. But I can’t recall any friend of mine — both cultural elitists and my “normal American” friends back in West Virginny — saying “Jeezus, I’m terrified they’re gonna hit us again, any day.” But I guess a lot of people do think that’s the case.

Kevin asks, “Just how afraid are most Americans of another terrorist attack? That is, at a gut level, not an intellectual level.” I have to admit, I wonder the same thing. When I lived in DC, I thought about it a fair amount for months after 9/11, but is there a genuine fear among Americans nationwide — far outside of DC and NYC — that causes two-thirds of them to say, “Go ahead, NSA, monitor my [tag]phone calls[/tag]”?

And if so, I also wonder where these people would draw the line. [tag]NSA[/tag] [tag]eavesdropping[/tag]? NSA cameras? I think Tomasky’s right, too many people are willing to say, “Whatever it takes,” but is there any limit in these folks’ minds?

May 12, 2006 at 3:34 pm

but is there any limit in these folks’ minds?

I think there is. We’ve all seen references to polls in which big majorities were shown to disapprove of one or the other first-amendment rights, but if you ask them if they support our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, support is unanimous.

I think when folks hear about something like this, their first instinct is to ask “Will this affect me?” Yesterday in the media, I heard twice as many talking heads saying, “It’s only numbers; there was no eavesdropping,” as presented the negative implictions of the program. If the government has the information, they can use it however they like, and past experience (e.g. Nixon) should tell us that not all uses are likely to be aimed at “protecting the American people.” That 66 percent needs some education about the issue, but I’m not sure where they’re going to get it.

I thought it took a very long time, also, for the general public to get frustrated with Iraq, or to recognize that Saddam wasn’t involved in 9/11.

Given a bit of time, I can only imagine a drop in the approval rating as awareness of the implications and risks grows.

Let it sink in that, left unchecked, data could be retained for decades and a future Congress could decide that its usage was fair game in the War On Drugs. Instead of a No-Fly list, we’ve got a No-Hire list based on 20-year-old, error-ridden phone call patterns. Then do a poll or a referendum and see how wide the support is.

The next poll needs to ask “Do you think it’s fair that you, an ordinary American, are now suspected enough of your complicity in another terror attack that records of your telephone calls should be permanently stored in a government database?”

Welcome to Salem, USA! Witchhunting is back. Clarence Thomas was wrong at his confirmation hearings to declare them a “high tech lynching.” That term will be reserved for the folks innocently caught up in this high tech dragnet

Let’s also consider the number of people who over the years (and particularly since 9/11, but it’s important to note this has been going on awhile) have bought into such things as criminals “getting off on technicalities” when what we are talking about are the major cases of criminal law that establish just what the protections of the Bill of Rights includes and what can be done in specific circumstances. For many of our fellow Americans, the Bill of Rights is a “technicality” overall, and the majority of them can’t name them in order or even tell you what the major points are in all of them (other than the Second Amendment, and I for one believe their interpretation is wrong).

So before we get all up in arms, let’s bear in mind we are dealing with a nation for whom the words “political morons”describes a good 60% (at least).

Let’s also bear in mind that back 36 years ago, a majority of our fellow Americans thought Daniel Ellsberg, the New York Times and the Washington Post had done something worthy of jail time for publishing the Pentagon Papers, which makes the belief that the reporters did something wrong here by reporting about the secret NSA program a bit more understandable in historical context.

Basically, we are really really lucky that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Bill of Rights and that Vermont wouldn’t ratify the Constitution without them, way back when. It’s highly unlikely that – even before 9/11 – you could have gotten majority support to amend the Constitution with these 10 amendments even ten years ago.

Sorry to sound like someone who doesn’t like his fellow citizens, but most of them don’t know as much about politics as they do about driving their cars, and look at the total moronic stupidity you can run across in any given 30 seconds on the streets and highways.

I think they are more afraid of the terrorists than they are of the government for real and hyped reasons. I think they trust the government and they believe that the constitutional/legal protections will protect them. They aren’t think of how something like can be corrupted by one person or small group of people. They have no concept of what the government can/can’t, will/will not do. They don’t realize that this administration is gaming/altering those very constitutional/legal protections that are being relied on and how those are impacting a host of different areas. They aren’t thinking that now the goalposts are moved again. They don’t see that all of what is going on now has created a new starting point that much closer to much greater/wider acceptance of government intrusion. They don’t see that once the genie is out of the bottle, it may be all but impossible to control it.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty no Safety. – Ben Franklin

“Men are moved by two principal things – by love and by fear. Consequently, they are commanded as well by someone who wins their affection as by someone who arouses their fear, Indeed, in most instances the one who arouses their fear gains more of a following and is more readily obeyed than the one who wins their affection.”

– Machiavelli

“Fear” is the only tool in their shed. It’s a tool well known to many religious organizations as well. Expect to see it wielded with gusto over the next 6 months.

To the folks in question, I believe that there are not limits and that the limits are not even close for many Americans. OK, maybe a GPS chip implant, but in terms of surveillance, it is way out there. You say “NSA cameras” as if that would be outrageous, but some cities already use camera systems. If the local government can do it to catch speeders and traffic violations, certianly the NSA doing it in the name of stopping terrorism would be fine. If someone is OK with unchecked traffic monitoring of telephone, then why would they be upset with e-mail or web traffic?

Really, the “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about mentality” can be used for anything. I think an unfortunate number of Americans use this logic and do not consider the broader consequence of the erosion of their privacy.

Moreover, the acceptance by Americans of these programs WITHOUT OVERSIGHT is mindboggling. I’m on the fence about data mining for data/telephone patterns, but without the proper oversight and legal checks, the ease with which it can be abused makes it impossible to support. This applies to any administration, but particularly this one, which has repeatedly demonstrated a penchant for lying, secrecy, avoiding accountability, and willingness to use smears and leaks for political gain.

I work fewer than 12 blocks from Ground Zero. The windows of my office look south. From my desk, at which I was sitting when the first plane struck on 9.11, I had a perfect view of the towers. Every day I ride to and from work beneath the East River. Every day I carry an M95 gas mask – just in case this is the day a device is detonated in the tubes, beneath the water. I’m still very much aware of the potential for a new attack.

Having offered that melodramatic introduction, what enrages me, astounds me, makes me grieve is how quickly and effortlessly everything that has distinguished our system of government has been savaged, beaten, and left for dead because, “9.11 Changed Everything”

This isn’t the forum for me to offer a full scale pollemic, but I stand as evidence that you can remain well aware of the potential for further attacks and yet be unwilling to yield to that fear the liberties and freedoms that are the very essence of what this country is suposed to represent. It isn’t some mutually exclusive choice: abiding by the Constitution OR fighting those who would harm us. Charity begins at home: first you defend the documents upon which our country was founded – those are inviable, eternally. All must be done -can be done- within the framework of our laws. To do anything other is to tacitly concede victory to our enemy, for surley they have won as thoroughly if we dismantle our contry for them as they would if they fought to do it themselves.

Thus endeth the diatribe.

While the numbers can appear to be counterintuitive, there are some plausible explanations. In psychology, there is a phenomenon called the “terror management theory”. I believe the theory was originally advanced back in the 70’s. At the time, it had little actual connection to actual terrorism…it was primarily a means to explain the human aversion to mortality. Specifically, the theory says that much of what people do is influenced by attempts to avoid or address one’s pending mortality.

After 9/11, the theory gained new attention and more than one book was written about the topic. When looking at these numbers and the seemingly absurd acceptance of widespread domestic surveillance, the theory helps explain the results. Essentially, anything that helps assuage the fear of death can potentially be an acceptable situation. To offer an analogy, one might look at those who refuse to fly in an airplane…despite statistics demonstrating that flying is safer than driving, the fear of a more certain death can overcome the logical data. I suspect this is at play in these otherwise confounding numbers.

more observations here:

http://www.thoughttheater.com

It bothers me greatly to hear comments such as these from people like Cavuto. It also greatly saddened me to read about this poll. I feel that it is completely fear based and un-American. What ever happened to our spirit, our pride, and our way of life? This is simply more proof to me that on 9/11 the terrorists won. They destroyed the American way of life, and we let them.

I hold a quote very near to my heart. I think that the speaker of this quote would be very disappointed if he were alive today.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

I think that the American Public doesn’t think much of our records being in the hands of the government because so much of our records are already in the hands of big business.

Think about it. If those data-mining cookies had no impact on our computers’ performance (as in slowing things down), most people don’t even think to remove them.

Also, with ALL the security cameras around (we have several in our condo complex), and shows like CSI showing how people are found through combing various security cameras, people have gotten inured to the concept of our privacy being invaded.

The uproar won’t get started unless someone in the immediate family gets arrested for talking to someone innocuous. Then people will realize that the government doesn’t have any business in our private business. But until then, I think the general public are collectively saying, “Well, all these companies know my buying habits, why not let the government?”

They just don’t understand the ramifications yet. Unfortunately.

That’s why we have a Constitution, and in particular, a Bill of Rights. The people would be all too glad to give them up if we didn’t (except for guns, as Tom Cleaver mentioned), and they would gladly submit to the tyranny of the majority without these protections. How often do we hear, “It’s majority rule, right?”

I don’t think it’s 9/11. Polls show people aren’t aware, or don’t appreciate, or even disapprove of the freedoms granted, and
the limitations on government, in the Bill of Rights.

I personally don’t know anyone who is now, or ever was afraid of another terrorist attack at the gut level. Intellectually I hope we all know there’s a risk, much smaller than that of most of the tragedies that can befall us, of another attack, and that there probably will be one someday, and that the United States won’t come crashing down as a result of it. Our response to the threat of terrorism as a nation is totally out of proportion to the actual risk, however, so maybe I’m wrong about the gut level fear quotient.

Or perhaps this bizarre poll result is a combination of both. It
certainly is disturbing though, whatever the reasons.

So Bush gets a bounce in the polls for snooping on Americans?

Just two days ago one Michael W. Kennedy attacked a police station off route 28 in Northern Virginia. He killed Detective Vicky O. Armel and wounded others. It turns out he had five guns with him, including a AK-47, and fired 70 rounds before being gunned down himself. At his parents home there were more guns, all loose and easily available to him, with ammunition.

If this had been Mohammed Wali Kamal with access to a similar arsenal, and he had gone one block west and fired on the police officers protecting the National Reconnaissance Office, this would have been a clear terrorist act. Then maybe people would be calling for gun control and getting rid of assault rifles. Then, with their supposed 2nd amendment rights under attack, would the fearful fools who will surrender every other right, start to complain.

Or, it could be that the two-thirds number is the artifact of a badly-constructed poll with leading questions and a small sample conducted before the revelations in the USA Today article were widely known, and certainly before they were well discussed. The exercise of imagining why someone might conduct and report such a poll is left to the reader.

Before panic, or too much time spent on diagnosing the public’s psychology, let’s remember that one poll is not reality. Lies, damn lies, and statistics, remember.

Boy George II says that innocent Americans have nothing to fear from any of his programs.

However, Americans who complain about his programs are all labeled by his supporters as traitors and supporters of terrorists.

So I suppose if you want to defend you constitutional rights, you can expect them to be violated 😉

For all those who have their knickers in a knot over this idiot poll, may I suggest you go get a nice hot steaming cup of Common Sense On This Issue freshly brewed up by Glenn Greenwald over at his blog, and then take a deep breath, count to ten, and then thank Glenn for his reality check.

really!

this is just a lot of hand wringing.

i’m confident the explanation is that most respondents had little or no idea what was involved.

they gave an uninformed off-the-cuff response over the telephone to a question out of the blue.

respondent ignorance

and

question wording

make most polls shaky bases for any analysis.

i would bet that if you sat the approving respondents down for a one day seminar/discussion of what was involved both, technically and politically,

you would get a complete reversal in the numbers.

eyeore13 (#11) made the point that people living/working at ground zero can still go about their lives. It seems to me that the “fear factor” increases in potency as a direct consequence of distance from the thing feared. The less familiar we are, the more we fear. The greatest racism in this country is in the four states where 50% percent still favor Bush – Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska – among the “whitest” states in the country, the ones with the least urban experience.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as H.L. Mencken – “democracy is the theory that the common man knows what he wants, and deserves to get it good and hard.” – but I am generally suspicious of all polls which simply ask “the common man” for his opinion on a complex topic.

I think asking the American people whether they mind the Regal Moron and the rest of the Bush Crime Family keeping track of our phone calls, emails, movie rentals and book check-outs (does anyone use libraries anymore, btw?) is a fool’s errand. Of course they don’t mind (“I have nothing to hide”) because they’re too unimaginative or inexperienced to know what use can be made of such information. What they should be asked is “Do you mind the President of the United States breaking the laws of the United States, laws which he has sworn an oath to protect and defend?”

Lance, I concur with your remarks on #13. While 9/11 was exceptionally dramatic in its scope and effect, it still remains an isolated incidence of being attacked or provoked by a terrorist from another nation.

However, someone “going postal,” grade school/ high school shootings and murder – suicide rampages are relatively commonplace in comparison. Statistics would warrant we have more to fear from homegrown, random violence than from an Islamist plot. We also have more to fear from this government overstepping its constraints to do whatever its wants to whomever it wants without compunction. How easily we’ve acquiesced to tyranny from the Bushies.

One must, as a matter of recourse, also accept the possibility that the respondants to this poll have been mellowed by several months of Boy George’s “we’re-just-tracking-bad-guys” spin. This, in and of itself, leads to the exposure of a direct and intentional lie to the American People by the President. NSA’s wiretappng was vigorously denied—until it was reported as being a factual event. Now, NSA’s wiretapping of domestic communication exposed—which they denied until it, too, was documented in the news.

Let us, for just a wee bit, place the proverbial “shoe on the other foot.” Where, for example, would you or I be, if it were reported in tomorrow morning’s papers that “you or I” had engaged in the illicit wiretapping of the White House…or the Pentagon…or NSA…purely on the speculation that the individuals being wiretapped were conducting covert efforts to undermine the Constitution itself?

I seem to recall something about “the Government” being “of, by, and for the People.” But it’s rather likely that, given the circumstances under which this most present—and criminally heinous—administration operates, “you or I” would be on the midnight fast-track to an unknown destination. That, in the end, may be the second possibility relating to why the survey seems so tilted: Far too many are afraid of the possible ramifications of speaking out against “Fauntleroy’s Legions.” Every dictatorial control-freak in history employed fear as the modus operandi of controlling its citizenry. Roman Emperors did it. The Church did it (and in some cases STILL does it). George Rex III did it. Hitler. Stalin. Pol Pot. Idi Amin. J. Edgar Hoover. Nixon. And now, Kid George and the resurrected mentality of Tammany Hall joins this most notorious and ignoble club….

TERRORISM!! Booga booga booga!!!

Now give me your money.

I’d love to know the exact question and how it was put to the people. I don’t believe this poll at all. Perhaps they didn’t realize this also includes them and their family!
I heard that 1 phone company mentioned no warrents were given and they gave over information willingly. Do you suppose we can have a class action suite against them?

I took Tom Cleaver up on his suggestion to go read Greenwald’s latest blog…and he’s right. Greenwald says, basically, Cool it, guys.

Let’s calm down and think about it. How did this “poll” pop up within 24 hours of the USA TODAY article — an article which (we assume) BushCo, not to mention the pollsters, had no idea was coming?

There’s something fishy going on here…like everything else involving this issue.

I agree that the news simply hasn’t sunk in yet, and possibly that the poll is unrepresentative. That being said, however, the last few years have seen a massive epidemic of IOKIYAR. If we had either Clinton as president and the government was discovered to be conducting a rogue, black-bag, intelligence-gathering operation that targeted all US citizens with absolutely no legal oversight beyond the president’s say-so, we’d already have a right-wing revolution on our hands. People who detest such things as federal databases on gun ownership and national ID cards should be screaming their heads off over this, so I don’t understand why the outrage isn’t deafening.

Check out firedoglake. They do a good job of debunking this pollster:

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/05/12/bush-league/

And Dan Froomkin pointed out how leading the questions were here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/05/12/BL2006051200944_pf.html

(about a third of the way down)

[relevant excerpt]

Here’s the language from the Washington Post/ABC News poll :

“What do you think is more important right now — (for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy); or (for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats)? Sixty-five percent said investigate threats; 31 percent said privacy.

“It’s been reported that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the conversations. Would you consider this an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?” Sixty-three percent said acceptable, 35 percent said unacceptable.

But aside from creating an unfair and false conflict between national security and privacy, these questions simply aren’t the most appropriate ones right now. How about asking something like this:

* Do you feel you know enough about how this program works to reach a definitive conclusion?

* Do you think the public should know more about this program and others like it?

* Should the government be able to launch programs like this in secret?

* Do you think President Bush should have asked for approval from the courts or Congress before taking this action?

* Do you trust the Bush administration not to abuse a program like this, when there is no independent oversight?

I fear that the war on terrorism is distracting us from the big picture events that will impact our lives much more seriously in the future — global warming, over population, species extinctions, erosion of ecosystem integrity, over fishing of the oceans, the continuing growth of global megalopolises, the impoverishment and out migration of country folk into the megalopolises, etc. etc. etc. What we really have to fear is our short sightedness and our failure to have learned to live on earth.

Just posted this at TAPPED, but thought it would be relevant here, too:

I know it’s sacreligious to mention his name in some parts of the blogosphere, but I think Chris Matthews has been right on this one (shudddder…).

He’s said that the way to get public opinion more solidly against the NSA is to personalize it: find some innocent American who’s been spied on or phone-tapped or wrongly persecuted b/c of this. Then the media will take it seriously, and public opinion will turn in our favor. Sort of like Terry Schaivo in reverse: you take it out of the abstract.

And then forget about the NY Times or the WaPo. Once you find this person who’s been wrongly imprisoned or detained b/c of the NSA stuff (hopefully it’s a nice suburban soccer mom), you make sure her story gets to all the Local news broadcasts, to the tabloid press, and definitely to Parade Magazine and places like that.

Then sit back and watch the whole durn NSA implode under the political pressure. Soft media, kids… soft media.

Fascinating thread…CJ, KarenJG, and Paul’s comments gave me pause, in particular…

Let’s think outside the box for a moment. After this second revelation that a database on a MAJORITY of American phone calls is being supplied to the NSA – this one following the December revelations – I think it’s safe to assume that the NSA is creating databases or is contemplating creating databases on whatever they can digitize…

How about some for instances???

-Credit card purchases – thank you, Visa and MasterCharge… I wonder if American Express is still playing coy with the NSA???
-Surveillance camera records from targeted areas…remember to wave to Gen. Hayden at your next visit to the ATM.
-Internet traffic…we were shocked, shocked to hear that Google played ball with the Chinese…I wonder what kind of chats NSA has had with Google and Yahoo recently???
-EZ Pass traffic on the East Coast..is there a West Coast equivalent???

I don’t think this is tinfoil territory any longer – rather, I think it’s naive to presume that the NSA has a shred of respect for privacy considerations implicit in the Fourth Amendment.

Remember, the NSA’s charter is classified: bottom line there is no oversight and the American public is not entitled to know its mission.

We now know that the US is incapable of placing meaningful human intelligence on the ground – we don’t value foreign cultures, we don’t learn foreign languages. So – and I apologize for the crude metaphor – in its absence, the inquisitorial elves at NSA are happily j*cking off behind their computer screens amassing our personal data…

karenJG

well done!

and thank you.

these are the facts we needed to know.

what were the questions?

simple stuff, right!

but you are the first that i have read

to shine the light of criticism on the actual questions.

great reporting.

orionATL – can’t take credit for it, I just found it. Jane at firedoglake and Dan Froomkin deserve the credit.

There’s lots to be troubled by in America’s reaction to possible violence.

My first reaction was shock that so many of us are willing to do so little to preserve our liberties. No one said (or did they, the worms, in some low-grade history class?) that democracy and freedom are easy or guarantee safety. No one with half a brain should imagine that maintaining liberty is a bloodless, sit-down job, or that our first concern should be safety and the second (or eighth or forty-second) concern should be freedom. Do I sound disgusted? I am.

My second thoughts when hearing the stats was rage. Because we concoct so much unnecessary violence in our lives. America is famous for the violence in its popular culture — violence as entertainment. Even real violence becomes entertainment — look at the endless replays of the assaulted and burning WTC towers. So does this come down to a ghastly possibility that we can sit for hours on our duffs enjoying violence, but we wouldn’t get up and risk our own safety in exchange for guarantees of freedom? That’s patriotism?

Gosh, what’s the color for today? You remember, dontcha, the bogus, cooked-from-scratch alert system plastered over the media every day. Meant to scare the crap out of us, and very effective for a while. Now where’s the beef?

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