NSA surveillance opposed by American voters from all parties, poll finds

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/18/us-voters-broadly-opposed-nsa-surveillance

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With five days in the legislative calendar remaining before a pivotal aspect of the Patriot Act expires, a new poll shows widespread antipathy to mass surveillance, a sense of where the debate over the National Security Agency’s powers stands outside of Washington.

Commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union and carried out by the Global Strategy Group and G2 Public Strategies, the poll of 1,001 likely voters found broad opposition to government surveillance across partisan, ideological, age and gender divides.

Sixty percent of likely voters believe the Patriot Act ought to be modified, against 34% that favor its retention in its current form. The NSA uses Section 215 of the Patriot Act as the legal basis for its daily collection of all Americans’ phone data, as the Guardian revealed in June 2013 thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden, a practice that a federal appeals court deemed illegal on 7 May.

Opposition to reauthorizing the Patriot Act without modification cuts against a bill by the GOP Senate leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The poll found 58% of Republicans favor modification, the subject of a rival bipartisan bill that recently passed the House, with only 36% of them favoring retention. Self-identified “very conservative” voters favor modification by a 59% to 34% margin.

The margins for Democrats are similar to those for Republicans. Independent voters, however, are even less enthusiastic about mass domestic surveillance: 71% want the Patriot Act modified, versus 22% who favor keeping it as it is, which pollster Greg Strimple called “intense”.

More than three-quarters of likely voters the poll interviewed opposed related aspects of current surveillance authorities and operations. Eighty-two percent are “concerned” about government collection and retention of their personal data. Eighty-three percent are concerned about government access to data stored by businesses without judicial orders, and 84% want the same judicial protections on their virtual data as exist for physical records on their property. The same percentage is concerned about government use of that data for non-counter-terrorism purposes.

“Consensus on this issue is bipartisan,” said Strimple.

“There’s real concern about what the government’s accessing about your personal life.”

Male voters are somewhat more opposed to unabridged Patriot Act reauthorization, though women oppose it, 57-38. Likely voters younger than 40 oppose it 65-30; voters 45 and older oppose it 59-35.

The poll comes as Senate battle lines are hardening over the future of bulk surveillance. The majority leader, McConnell, has yet to schedule a floor vote for a bill the House passed overwhelmingly on Thursday to divest the NSA of its domestic bulk phone records collection.

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul has pledged to block any efforts that stop short of fully ending the NSA’s bulk collection. During a campaign stop in Philadelphia on Monday, Paul said he will “do everything possible” to reign in the government’s surveillance apparatus.

“Here in front of Independence Hall, I call on the president to obey the law,” said Paul, who is at odds with McConnell, his fellow Kentucky Republican. “They have the votes inside the Beltway. But we have the votes outside the Beltway, and we’ll have that fight.”

McConnell, backed by the intelligence committee chairman, Richard Burr, is backing an alternative that would formally authorize the bulk surveillance program, as well as every other investigative authority for the government under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which is currently set to expire on 1 June. The ACLU-commissioned poll did not specifically ask about attitudes toward Section 215 lapsing.

Some members of Senate GOP leadership have conceded that a full renewal of the law is unlikely to get the 60 votes it needs to break a filibuster, potentially paving the way for a short-term renewal to prevent a lapse in the programs.

Paul, along with Oregon senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, has already announced the McConnell-Burr bill dead on arrival and vowed to filibuster it. But while Wyden backs a version of the bill the House passed, known as the USA Freedom Act, Paul said Monday he opposes the legislation because it may still allow for the bulk collection of phone records.

Paul remained vague on how exactly he plans to stop a renewal of the program from clearing the Senate – namely whether he will mount a talking filibuster similar to the 2013 effort against drones that catapulted the first-term senator to the national stage. But he acknowledged delaying tactics might be his only option, given the lack of support in Congress to end the Patriot Act entirely.

McConnell took the opposite view of the House-passed bill on Sunday, stating his fear that the USA Freedom Act “will basically end the program”. The Senate majority leader said while he and Paul see eye-to-eye on most issues, they will simply have to agree to disagree on the topic of government’s surveillance.

“This is the security of the country we’re talking about here. This is no small matter,” McConnell said during an appearance on ABC’s This Week. “I want to reassure everybody that there are plenty of safeguards in this program. Nobody at the NSA is routinely listening in to your telephone conversations.”

Neema Singh Giuliani of the ACLU said the poll results show a “disconnection” between anti-surveillance fervor by voters and a congressional debate bounded by retained surveillance powers at one pole and what she described as the “modest reform” of the USA Freedom Act on the other.

“The fact that a lot of members of Congress are still pushing forward to try to reauthorize provisions of the law that many people find concerning is not reflective of the view of the vast majority of the public of both parties,” she said.