What do Americans want?
It’s the question of the day, and it comes from a series of new surveys commissioned by Bloomberg and Bloomberg LP.
The surveys, which track a range of factors including income, education, job and political views, are the latest in a series that Bloomberg has conducted for the past two years to measure the level of interest Americans have in the surveillance and its effects.
The survey, which is conducted online, found that nearly 70 percent of Americans have a positive view of the NSA.
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed (65 percent) say they “strongly” or “somewhat” agree that “there is a reasonable expectation that the United States government will collect, store and use certain types of data related to national security and foreign affairs.”
Only 24 percent of respondents said they were “slightly” or not at all concerned about the program.
The poll found that almost four-in-ten Americans (38 percent) said they had a positive impression of the programs’ transparency, while a full half (49 percent) had an unfavorable impression.
A similar number (49) said the programs have made their programs more difficult to access or use.
Overall, the surveys found that Americans generally feel less comfortable with the NSA’s surveillance program than the Bush administration did in 2003.
Roughly two-quarters (74 percent) of respondents, including about half of Democrats, say the government’s current surveillance program is too intrusive.
The Pew Research Center’s survey found that less than half of Americans think the government has “a reasonable expectation” that the NSA will be able to collect the data it collects in the future.
And just over half (55 percent) think the surveillance program has led to “less oversight.”
The poll also found that roughly two-in
