Politico
posits that while plenty of people are plenty pissed off about the NSA surveillance revelations of Edward Snowden, activists will have an uphill battle in trying to bring about change.
The question is whether these anti-surveillance voters will be successful in creating a broader populist movement. Many lawmakers have defended the NSA surveillance program — a program Congress itself reviewed and approved in secret.
And unlike the anti-war effort that rallied Democrats during the Bush administration, and the tea party movement that galvanized conservatives in President Barack Obama's first term, government surveillance opponents tend to straddle party lines. The cause appeals to libertarian Republicans who don't like big government and progressive liberals [...] who do but favor civil liberties. Together, these voters would have little in common otherwise.
Another complication is the potential of another terrorist attack. One spectacular act and public opinion could flip, much as it did after 9/11, back to favoring government surveillance. Politicians know this, with many of them opting to blast the Obama administration for not being more transparent but most opposing an end to broad surveillance powers.
"If in fact something happens, you're basically putting yourself in a position to look like you didn't do something when you should have. And that's got to be in the back of their head," said Ed Goeas, president of the Tarrance Group in Alexandria, Va., a Republican survey research and strategy company.
Here's the problem with that analysis. As is typical for Politico, which can't report on anything unless it has something to do with Republican versus Democrat, it's framed entirely by election prospects. What is discounted here is the fact that there are at least dozens more NSA revelations to come from the material whistleblower Edward Snowden has provided, and that this story won't be going away any time soon. Yes, pressure from voters would help garner support for reform, and the new revelations could build both public and congressional support for reform.
There's another aspect of this that Politico is missing that could be significant. They say that "industry isn't exactly fighting back." That's more than subject to change as tech companies are losing business and stand to lose a lot more over their cooperation in the surveillance: $21.5 to $35 billion over the next three years. These losses, and the powerful lobby efforts of the tech industry to try to stem them, could definitely swing the debate in favor of reform in Congress.
Finally, Congress could be insulted by and fed up with moves like the the one President Obama made this week. The "outside" and "independent" technical advisory group Obama promised in his NSA "reforms" will be neither. He's put Director of National Intelligence James Clapper—the administration official who has admitted to lying to Congress about the extent of the NSA's domestic spying—in charge of this not-outside and not-independent group, which Clapper will be selecting. That's not a way to win over Congress.
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