American taxpayers are changing their behavior and use of technology to avoid government spying in a new damaging report that in its background results from flagrant violations of Constitutional rights in AutoInformed’s view. Almost one-third of adults — 30% — have taken steps to hide or shield their information from prying government programs that monitor phone and electronic communications, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The spied upon at 22% say they have changed their use of various technology platforms “a great deal” or “somewhat” since the leaks by Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency contractor, disclosed the surveillance programs in mid-2013.
The survey finds that 87% of adults have heard at least something about the surveillance or spying programs. The 31% of Americans who have heard “a lot” about spying express more concern than others about them. These informed citizens, are more likely to say they are less confident the programs are in the public interest. They also think that courts are not striking the right balance between Americans’ privacy and the needs of the intelligence and law enforcement communities.
Americans – 57% opposed to spying – say it is unacceptable for the government to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens.
“As we have studied privacy issues since the Snowden leaks, we’ve been asking Americans how they feel about the monitoring programs and what tradeoffs they feel are acceptable as policy makers try to strike a balance between privacy and security,” Lee Rainie, Director of Internet, Science, and Technology research at the Pew Research Center told AutoInformed.
“This is the first time we have asked whether people have changed their own behavior to avoid the possibility of government surveillance. And we find that a portion of the population is adjusting some activity at least in some simple ways like changing their privacy settings and being a bit more discreet in the things they say and search for,” Rainie says.
In the survey, the 87% of adults who have heard at least something about the government monitoring programs were asked about steps they might have taken to hide or shield their information from the government. In all, 34% of those who have heard about the programs (30% of all adults) say that they have changed at least one of the following:
17% of the adults who have heard about the government surveillance programs say they have changed their privacy settings on social media in an effort to hide their information from the government.
- 15% have avoided certain apps.
- 15% have used social media less often.
- 14% have spoken more in person instead of communicating online or over the phone.
- 13% have uninstalled certain apps.
- 13% have avoided using certain terms in online communications.
- 13% have unfriended or unfollowed people on social media.
- 11% have not used certain terms in search engine queries they thought might trigger scrutiny.
- 8% have deleted social media accounts.
- 8% have made more phone calls instead of communicating online
These are among the findings from a new survey of 475 adults, 18 years of age or older conducted between November 26, 2014, and January 3, 2015. The Pew Research Center survey was conducted by the GfK Group using KnowledgePanel, its online research panel. Sampling error for the total sample of 475 respondents is plus or minus 5.6 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence.
