# Why the persistent political apathy over NSA surveillance? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 1, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632 "2014-03-01T21:57:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/41 "2014-03-06T16:14:37Z")
> [@WheatCat](#): > > I would not call the attitude of Congress and the the public to be a form of apathy. > > Rather, it is an informed decision to grant our counterterror ops the widest possible latitude in their struggle to keep us from getting blown to smithereens. “Informed” by what, exactly? Informed by the international conspiracy of nightcreatures, ongoing for decades, of which 9/11 is only the most spectacular example. Then why aren’t we fighting them with stakes and garlic and holy water? ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/42 "2014-03-06T16:19:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Then why aren’t we fighting them with stakes and garlic and holy water? Because they are a real threat and not a fictitious threat. Got any more cute questions? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/43 "2014-03-06T17:04:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So, if our next POTUS is a Pub and the NSA surveillance continues, Congress will get mad enough to stop it? Actually, I think for once (blind pigs acorns and all that) Shodan’s standard no content drive by post is relevant. Part of the problem of this scandal is that it works backwards with regard to the standard political directions. The right can’t really attack the issue because it has generally been their policy to support sacrificing civil rights in the name of security, while the left can’t get too much traction because its their boy at the center of it. The only real attacks on this are from the far left who are willing to sacrifice political points in favor of principal , and the reflexive Obama haters on the right who would gladly sacrifice any principal in order to make Obama look bad. In our current political system the former are few and largely powerless, while for the latter its just one more thing to complain about so doesn’t really change anything. If it was a Republican administration in charge when this came out, you would see clear battle lines drawn. The left would be howling about the abuse of power and the coming police state, while the right would be howling about how necessary this program is for our national security, and anyone who would oppose this is a traitor. As far as the public goes, I think most people have a hard time figuring out how the NSA surveillance really hurts them. Things might change if the opponents could identify some innocent individual who was measurably harmed by this policy, and could be used a poster child then they might get some traction. Until then you can only really talk about ifs, coulds and slippery slopes. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/44 "2014-03-06T17:10:16Z")
Buck when Bush was in power there was the scandal of warrantless wiretaps. There was some amount of upset about it but the Democrats did not raise much of a stink about it. > **[NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–2007)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_%282001%E2%80%9307%29)** > > NSA warrantless surveillance — also commonly referred to as "warrantless-wiretapping" or "-wiretaps" — refers to the surveillance of persons within the United States, including U.S. citizens, during the collection of notionally foreign intelligence by the National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. In late 2001, the NSA was authorized to monitor, without obtaining a FISA warrant, phone calls, Internet activities, text messages and other forms of communication ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/45 "2014-03-06T17:10:18Z")
> [@WheatCat](#): > > Focusing on the public, what, exactly, has it lost? How many innocent Americans have lost their wealth or lives on account of NSA surveillance? Have _any_? [Yep.](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805) Next inane question…? > [@](#): > > A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. > > Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin – not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. > > The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don’t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence – information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses… ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/46 "2014-03-06T17:47:47Z")
There are no inane questions, only inane answers. One class of inane answers are those which do not even bother to try to answer the question. Steve MB provides a classic example in reply #45. Maybe he will better understand what I am asking if I edit and reformat: (1) How many innocent Americans have lost their wealth on account of NSA surveillance? (2) How many innocent Americans have lost their lives on account of NSA surveillance? Questions 1-2 ask for a _number_, which is in no way provided in reply #45. No need to give an exact number, of course. A ballpark figure, if properly cited, will be fine. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/47 "2014-03-06T17:51:21Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > [Yep.](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805) Next inane question…? That’s DEA, not NSA/CIA. Last I checked, it’s perfectly legal for the DEA to investigate Americans. (Next question?) ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/48 "2014-03-06T17:56:57Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > News is coming out that the CIA [spied on congress’s investigations against the CIA](http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/03/05/yes-the-cia-spied-on-congress/). This is explicitly against the CIA charter which forbids domestic intelligence. > > It’s crazy that even news as big as this is barely causing ripples among the public. This is an intelligence apparatus that isn’t even pretending to respect the rule of law or the delegation of powers. Oh wow, color me surprised. [insert original “rolleyes” smiley here, the new one’s a total joke] And what makes you think Congress or anyone in government gives a whit about domestic surveillance? That would be like the GOP arguing in favor of SSM or abortion, it goes against their very nature. And I think most Americans are aware of that to some degree, whether they like it or not – it’s the world we exist in, end of story. Live with it. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/49 "2014-03-06T21:27:11Z")
I really do proofread most of what I post, but I can’t seem to do a consistently accurate job of it. Reply number 40 contained a trivial error in the first sentence and a material error in the last. They are corrected in the repost below, hopefully. > [@WheatCat](#): > > I do not consider the attitude of Congress and the public to be a form of apathy. > > Rather, it is an informed decision to grant our counterterror ops the widest possible latitude in their struggle to keep us from getting blown to smithereens. “Informed” by what, exactly? Informed by the international conspiracy of nightcreatures, ongoing for decades, of which 9/11 is only the most spectacular example. > > OP limits the case to the American people, Congress, and NSA surveillance. Focusing on the public, what, exactly, has it lost? How many innocent Americans have lost their wealth or lives on account of NSA surveillance? Have _any_? It is the nightcreatures who, as we speak, are trying to take our wealth and lives away from us. We have weighed real (although almost universally unnoticeable on a personal level) loss of privacy against potential catastrophic loss of wealth and life, and have made a decision in favor of reducing privacy rights in order to help safeguard against catastrophic loss. It is the right decision. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/50 "2014-03-06T21:54:37Z")
> [@WheatCat](#): > > Because they are a real threat and not a fictitious threat. Not if they’re “nightcreatures,” they ain’t. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/51 "2014-03-06T23:22:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not if they’re “nightcreatures,” they ain’t. The word connotes evil, and as I use it it connotes evildoer. I am not the first \*\*to use it that way; see _Gorky Park_ by Martin Cruz Smith, page 6, paragraph 5, sentence 2: “Night Creatures.” in reference to the KGB, not a fictitious organization: [Gorky Park](http://books.google.com/books?id=Bk-tRhHoppYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=gorky+park&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8v4YU6XVI8a2yAGB0YCYCw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=gorky%20park&f=false) I doubt that usage is original with Smith, but he will do for our purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/52 "2014-03-07T12:20:09Z")
[QUOTE=WheatCat] Rather, it is an informed decision to grant our counterterror ops the widest possible latitude in their struggle to keep us from getting blown to smithereens. “Informed” by what, exactly? Informed by the international conspiracy of nightcreatures, ongoing for decades, of which 9/11 is only the most spectacular example. OP limits the case to the American people, Congress, and NSA surveillance. Focusing on the public, what, exactly, has it lost? How many innocent Americans have lost their wealth or lives on account of NSA surveillance? Have any? It is the nightcreatures who, as we speak, are trying to take our wealth and lives away from us. We have weighed real (although almost universally unnoticeable on a personal level) loss of privacy against potential loss of wealth and life and have made a decision in favor of the potential. It is the right decision. [/QUOTE] I disagree that it was an informed decision, or the right one. Al-Qaeda is a creature of the media as much as anything else. It serves the narrative of us as the ‘crusaders’ against the darkness, when I think more innocent people are afraid of our attacks in the middle of the night that anything jihadists do. We certainly killed more in our ‘fight for freedom’ than they ever hoped to dream - whether we use drones, or jihadists use an IED, we created the situation that enables that response - not them. We chose to respond with anger, warfare, and hatred fueled by ignorance. That was not the right decision. And the scale and scope of surveillance was never acknowledged for the average citizen to make an informed decision. Nor did our elected officials - Sen. Wyden recently noted he gets all of 15 minutes a year to directly question officials, and he sits on the Senate intelligence committee. Nor are they any repercussions when those officials lie. The checks and balances don’t seem to be working at the moment. But the broader issue is why are we creating the police surveillance state - as prelude to a true police state, as too many of my friends think, or a worse reason - there’s gold in them thar hills. The conservatives have destroyed nearly every other reason for taxes, ‘security’ is about the only one left. Reading up on the Deep State, as used by former GOP congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, their prime motivation is not so much power, as money. Power is only useful for them to obtain more money. Money for what? Mostly $16 million birthday parties for Muffy’s sweet sixteen. Or $50 million weddings. You know, useful stuff. And a big fat chunk of money and power is from government contracts - makes everyone happy. Government is privatized, so no pesky public unions. Privacy for them, sorry, IP protection, and surveillance, sorry, data collection, for the rest of us. The few bureaucrats left get to join the revolving door to contractors, getting fat bonuses or sweet boardroom seats when they ‘retire’ and then hired. (Swear Obama did something about [that.](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/ethics-commitments-executive-branch-personnel) Been very effective. They just get a two-year sabbatical.) Big Business and Big Government found out how to get around Eisenhower’s warning by not scaring too many of the people too much of the time,and not being so overt about the whole process. Because we certainly are not using the tools to police the streets. Personally, I consider gangs such as MS-13 or 18th Street a far greater danger than Al-Qaeda. I venture to say they have far more members than bin-Laden ever had, and they have destroyed more lives and endangered more communities in the US then he ever had. But they are a different narrative where we are not the good guys - who is buying all the coke, heroin and weed? Not fundamentalist Muslims. And there are not enough street junkies to maintain the size of the market. Luckily, most of the direct damage is to brown people, so no worries, right? As long as they stay in the inner cities or shitholes like Bakersfield or Fresno, Muffy doesn’t need to worry about her upcoming birthday. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/53 "2014-03-07T13:26:06Z")
It’s intriging for sure. Isn’t it actually a nice companion piece to the effective coup carried outby by Goldmann Sachs and former employees in the wake of the financial crisis; does the public give a shit? Of course the purpose of all this surveillance is to preserve the status quo, if not to enhance the status quo. It also doesn’t hurt to ensure the markets don’t have to factor in so much uncertainty. Who stands to gain from the status quo … a fair chunk of those with a voice in the society. Maybe it turns out peope never were that bothered by1984, all that stuff is just a little too distant and abstract. Cerrtainly people got a whole lot more stirred up about Obamacare. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/54 "2014-03-07T16:14:45Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > Who stands to gain from the status quo … a fair chunk of those with a voice in the society. The only people who gain (financially, that is) from preserving the status quo are the 0.1% in positions of power. But that’s always been the case since history began, hasn’t it? > [@BrokenBriton](#): > > Cerrtainly people got a whole lot more stirred up about Obamacare. Case in point – the Telerepubbies have done an amazing job in stirring up their blind-faith worshippers who decry Obamacare at every turn, not realizing they’ve been completely brainwashed. The only people who stand to lose anything from Obamacare are the super-rich, greedy, manipulative, soul-less Insurance Company CEO’s & HMO’s; _they_ are the ones who control our government, not the other way around. Not sure what any of that has to do with NSA surveillance, but it felt necessary to point that out. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/55 "2014-03-07T16:57:19Z")
Personally, I tink there are few objections because: 1. The technology makes the spying so unobtrusive – no guys in trench coats peeking in widows, no loud clicks on telephones, no _whirry_ sounds of zoom lenses, etc. 2. Most people really don’t believe that they are personally monitored, and don’t care if other people are personally monitored. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/56 "2014-03-12T17:46:57Z")
Now [here’s](http://www.salon.com/2014/02/18/nsa_surveillance_exposes_political_party_divisions/) an interesting analysis: > [@](#): > > While some leading Democrats have been reluctant to condemn the National Security Agency’s tactics, the GOP has begun to embrace a libertarian shift opposing the spy agency’s broad surveillance powers — a striking departure from the aggressive national security policies that have defined the Republican Party for generations. > > The lines are drawn but not in the traditional way. The Republican National Committee, civil libertarians like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and liberals like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren are on one side of the debate. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the House and Senate leadership are on the other side, defending the Obama administration’s surveillance programs as necessary to prevent terrorism. > > The split in each party could have practical and political consequences ahead of the 2014 midterm elections and the 2016 presidential contest. > > \ > > The Republican National Committee in January approved a resolution “to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs.” > > There was an immediate backlash from Bush-era Republican intelligence officials who described the resolution in a letter to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus as a dangerous “recipe for partisan oblivion.” Other Republicans also pushed back against the intraparty shift. > > Rubio said this week that “we need to be careful about weakening” the nation’s surveillance capabilities. So . . . what we have here is one more internal fault-line in the GOP. See also [this CNN editorial](http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/20/opinion/schneier-nsa-too-big/), recommending the NSA be broken up. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/57 "2014-03-13T20:41:09Z")
A very simple answer to the original question in this thread. There is apathy to the NSA surveillance because it is a Democratic President. If this was a Republican administration the NSA issue be top news every night, demands for impeachment, and general uprising by the democrat opposition party and media. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/58 "2014-03-13T22:03:23Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > That’s what FISA is supposed to do. That is a good thing. I see no evidence of extra judicial phone taps. I have enough to worry about without imagining boogeymen listening to my phone calls. What about when the NSA is refused a warrant to collect metadata on a hundred million Americans, as it’s obviously illegal, and just goes to the next FISA judge in line who rubber-stamps it? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/59 "2014-03-13T22:26:46Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > What about when the NSA is refused a warrant to collect metadata on a hundred million Americans, as it’s obviously illegal, and just goes to the next FISA judge in line who rubber-stamps it? As I said, metadata doesn’t rise to the level of outrage on my stress meter. Warrantless wiretaps would. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/60 "2014-03-13T22:46:05Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > A very simple answer to the original question in this thread. > > There is apathy to the NSA surveillance because it is a Democratic President. > > If this was a Republican administration the NSA issue be top news every night, demands for impeachment, and general uprising by the democrat opposition party and media. See post #56 – how does that explain the support of most of the GOP for it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632.md?page=4)