There’s about a 50/50 chance that you, the individual reading this article, are comfortable with the NSA tracking your phone to fight terrorism . The rest of you have flushed your 4G down the toilet and are currently curled up on your porch with a copy of 1984.
Still not sure whether it’s the sad truth, the happy truth, or just the plain truth, but a new poll found that the NSA phone tracking program is “acceptable” to 56 percent of Americans. Over half of us are totally cool with the National Security Agency secretly tracking everyone’s phone records to investigate terrorism.
If you’re on the pro-privacy side of the fence, 56 percent might seem depressingly high, but statistically speaking, it’s only a slim majority over the 41 percent who find the NSA’s phone tracking completely “unacceptable.”
But why the disparity? Believe it or not, Americans are actually divided right down the middle on most issues. Never saw that coming, did you?
Kidding aside, it’s the classic” freedom vs. security” thing. Americans right now are more afraid of potential terrorist threats than they are concerned with invasions of their personal privacy.
These opinions haven’t changed much since a 2006 survey on the same subject. Furthermore, there’s only a modest partisan difference on the issue.
Over half of Democrats are comfortable with the NSA phone tracking program (69 percent) with 62 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents agreeing.
A small ray of sunshine for the pro-privacy crowd: Younger people are more likely by far to prioritize privacy over protection against terrorism. However, only 12 percent of that same group said that they’re following the NSA phone tracking story closely.
What do you think? Is the NSA’s phone tracking “acceptable” to you? Why or why not? You can read the rest of the Washington Post / Pew poll here .
[Image via: Evlakhov Valeriy / Shutterstock ]