It's a post-Snowden world, but do we really care?

New Pew report shows that most people are concerned about privacy, but few are taking action

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We have been living in a post-Snowden age for almost two years now. And yet, I get the feeling that, despite all the revelations, not all that much has changed. I think maybe that is because most of us expected that we were being spied on already, so we weren't really shocked by the reports.

It's definitely not because people don't know about it, as a new research study out from Pew on Monday showed almost 90% of the 475 respondents asked had "at least a bit about the government surveillance programs to monitor phone use and internet use."

Almost a third, 31%, said that they had heard a lot, and 56% said they had heard a little. Only 6% said they had heard nothing at all about the scandal (to those people I suggest watching the news, going on the Internet or possibly going outside every once in a while).

Ok, so almost everyone knows about it. Now how many are actually doing something to protect themselves? Not a whole lot.

Only 34% have done at least one thing to help shield their information from the government. That can include changing their social media privacy settings, which 17% have done; only 15% have started avoiding certain apps; 13% have uninstalled an app to protect themselves; and 14% said they now talk more in person than online or on the phone.

One very interesting statistic, which has to do with the chilling effect of these revaluations: 13% said that they are now avoiding using certain terms in online communications. (I can relate to this one; a few years ago when I was writing about politics I had to look up the spellings of suspected terrorists and their organizations. This was before Snowden, but I automatically assumed that I had put myself on some kind of watch list)

Take a guess as to who are the ones protecting themselves: those who have heard a lot about what has been happening, of course, and those under 50, 40% of whom changed their behavior, compared to only 27% of those above 50.

Here is where it gets really interesting, though: I said above that I believe that many people already believed this to be happening. So how do people feel now that they know for sure?

It comes down on the side of concern, but not by as much as some might have believe and/or hoped": of the people who knew about the surveillance, 52% described themselves as “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about the government monitoring programs. Meanwhile, 46% said that they are “not very concerned” or “not at all concerned.”

Overall, 61% of those asked are now less confident that the surveillance efforts are serving the public interest since they have been watching the news and other developments in recent months, and 37% say they have become more confident the programs serve the public interest.

Breaking that down across political lines (we should do that with everything!) Republican-leaning people are more likely than Democrat-leaning people to say they are losing confidence, 70% vs. 55%.

While 57% say it is unacceptable for the government to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens, they are also pretty ok with our government spying on other people. 

82% say it is acceptable to monitor communications of suspected terrorists, 60% believe it is acceptable to monitor the communications of American leaders, 60% think it is okay to monitor the communications of foreign leaders, and 54% say it is acceptable to monitor communications from foreign 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, said in a statement.

“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.”

Even years later, the American public seems conflicted on the issue of privacy. And, honestly, as well they should be. It's not as clean-cut an issue as some would have you believe, that we should either be spying on everyone to make sure we don't get attacked again, or that we should spy on no one because privacy trumps all else.

This is an issue that has no clear solution, and we will be wrestling with it for years to come.

(Image source: npr.org)