I’m not one for opinion polls; if 64% of Americans said Justin Bieber was a fantastic singer, he would still be genuinely terrible. But with regards to the NSA spying program, I think it’s a fantastic point to make:

Yesterday, the Guardian released a comprehensive poll showing widespread concern about NSA spying. Two-thirds of Americans think the NSA’s role should be reviewed. The poll also showed Americans demanding accountability and more information from public officials—two key points of our recently launched stopwatching.us campaign.

But there’s more. So far, Gallup has one of the better-worded questions, finding that 53% of Americans disapprove of the NSA spying. A CBS poll also showed that a majority—at 58%—of Americans disapprove of the government “collecting phone records of ordinary Americans.” And Rasmussen—though sometimes known for push polling—also recently conducted a poll showing that 59% of Americans are opposed to the current NSA spying.

Many of my libertarian friends constantly lament that they’re fighting a losing war for our civil liberties, and that the public will cave on this (one friend even suggests that they’re actively looking for a reason to forget it already!) As we can see, though, the majority of Americans don’t feel that way, and I don’t think they’ll forget this quite that easily.

Many Americans, especially young Americans, are tech-savvy, concerned about their privacy, and are creeped out by some dude in a data center knowing every little bit of data about them–data that is actually in some cases more dangerous than the content of your phone calls.

There is still a lot to do–at least 41% of Americans are either okay with the program or undecided about it–but it seems clear to me: Americans will not take this one lying down.

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