Posted on 03/23/2015 10:15:56 AM PDT by Kaled
Most of the likely Republican presidential candidates are supportive of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. But Americans who identify as Republican or lean that way appear to disagree.
That’s according to a new survey from Pew Research, released on Monday, gauging post-Snowden attitudes on digital privacy and surveillance. Of respondents who were familiar with the NSA spying revelations, 70 percent of Republicans and those leaning Republican said they were losing confidence that the agency’s surveillance programs served the public interest. Just 55 percent of Democrats and those leaning Democratic said they had lost faith....
But the strong majority of GOP respondents who say they have lost confidence in the importance of the NSA's bulk collection of phone and Internet communications is likely a boon to the expected presidential campaigns of Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Their anti-NSA positions put both in the minority within the crowded GOP field, which features several contenders who ascribe to the party's more traditional defense-hawk roots.
The survey may also suggest that Senate Republicans are out of step with the majority of their base voters on government surveillance....
Many of the GOP’s expected White House contenders have also taken positions in defense of the NSA. In a major foreign policy speech last month, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said mass surveillance was “hugely important.” Sen. Marco Rubio, also from Florida, recently called for a permanent extension of the USA Patriot Act provisions that provide the legal authority for the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans' call data. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has admonished NSA critics by telling them to sit down with the families of the victims of Sept. 11, 2001....
(Excerpt) Read more at defenseone.com ...
Bush and Christie being squishy RINOs is just their nature, but Rubio really should know better....
I am confident that the 0bama or other ‘RAT regime would never use that data to spy on political enemies. </S>
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