The NSA Has An Image Problem

The NSA's Image Problem -- Amy Zegart and Marshall Erwin, L.A. Times

To know the spy agency is not necessarily to love it.

In the wake of Edward Snowden's ongoing revelations about U.S. surveillance programs, the National Security Agency is facing the worst crisis in its 60-year history. Today, too many Americans mistakenly believe the NSA is listening to their phone calls and reading their emails. But misperception is only part of the agency's problem. In an Oct. 5-7 YouGov national poll we commissioned, we also found the more that Americans understand the NSA's activities, the less they support the agency.

Our initial hunch was that Americans knew little about the intelligence agencies that have kept us safe since 9/11, and that public ignorance was compounding the NSA's trust problems. Without a baseline understanding of what the NSA does and how it works, Americans would be more likely to believe the worst about America's premier code-breaking and signals intelligence agency. Or so we thought.

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My Comment: In all fairness .... the ones who should be having the "image problem" are the politicians who gave the mandate, authority, and money to the NSA to conduct these surveillance and spy operations.