An extraordinary new survey finds that public concern is high over Uncle Sam’s surveillance of online and cellphone communications and about a third have taken steps to hide their electronic communications to avoid government surveillance.
A Pew Research Center survey also found that while the public doesn’t want Washington snooping on their communications, emails and Facebook entries, they support surveillance of terrorists and even American leaders.
The survey charts what people have done since government surveillance programs became public, in part due to the leaks by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor currently holed up in Moscow.
Pew said that 30 percent of adults surveyed have taken steps to hide or shield their info.
“As we have studied privacy issues since the Snowden leaks, we’ve been asking Americans how they feel about the monitoring programs and what tradeoffs they feel are acceptable as policy makers try to strike a balance between privacy and security,” said Lee Rainie, director of Internet, Science and Technology research at the Pew Research Center.
“We find that a portion of the population is adjusting some activity at least in some simple ways like changing their privacy settings and being a bit more discreet in the things they say and search for,” he said.
In the survey, 52 percent said they are concerned about government monitoring programs.
Pew added that a huge majority of Americans, 87 percent, have heard of the federal snooping programs and that 30 percent of all adults are making moves to hide their communications. For example they are changing social media privacy settings, using the phone to call instead of email or text and changed how they email.
Still, Pew found that most Americans haven’t made changes yet to protect their communications.
But while 57 percent of Americans said government monitoring of their accounts was unacceptable, they give the government the green light to target others, even people like the secretary of state and other top officials.
From Pew:
The public generally believes it is acceptable for the government to monitor many others, including foreign citizens, foreign leaders, and American leaders:
— 82% say it is acceptable to monitor communications of suspected terrorists.
— 60% believe it is acceptable to monitor the communications of American leaders.
— 60% think it is okay to monitor the communications of foreign leaders.
— 54% say it is acceptable to monitor communications from foreign citizens.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
