Most Americans disapprove of the blanket electronic eavesdropping carried out by the vast apparatus of U.S. security organs. It is, they tell pollsters, an infringement of their privacy and liberty.
Yesterday, President Barack Obama sympathized: "I think the fears about our privacy in this age of internet and big data are justified," he told reporters in The Hague.
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At the same time, polls suggest Americans overwhelmingly believe that Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who revealed that electronic spying, is a traitor who harmed his country.
Obama's officials wholeheartedly concur with that view. In fact, they want Snowden returned from his Russian asylum in chains.
Only one conclusion can sensibly be drawn from such profoundly contradictory attitudes: Americans, like most other people perhaps, prefer contented ignorance to uncomfortable truth.
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It is also clear, as Obama acknowledged Tuesday, that had it not been for Snowden, his administration would not be supporting legislation that would put an end to that program.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/obama-...sa-spying-won-t-help-edward-snowden-1.2586328

