The Question:
What do you think about recent news that the federal government is accessing the communication records of over 100 million Americans?

10% - It’s necessary to protect us from terrorism

24% - The federal government is starting to encroach too much in our lives

27% - Even if for our protection, I don’t trust the Obama administration with my info

39% - The federal government is now officially out of control

My Comments:
The debate over the government snooping on its citizens has created more strange bedfellows than any other issue in my memory. As you can see, our audience seems to be less polarized than the political class and talking heads, with fully nine out of ten of our respondents saying they’re uncomfortable with this kind of a government encroachment.

It seems to me that the issue for most of us is not so much whether the government can make good use of this information for national security purposes, but that government isn’t an abstract idea in this case - it’s real people with names we know. I’m going to have more to say about this in next week’s edition. Stay tuned.

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