Debatable. See polling at http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-usa-security-po... as discussed on HN at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5871423
Of course, the people who support him may still think that the spying is a good thing, just shouldn't be secretive... and maybe the 46% undecided will end up against him. But certainly doesn't seem as clear-cut as you suggest - do you have any examples of the polls you reference?
The main example is a Pew Research Poll showing that objection/support is partisan or age-based (though all sub-groups still support it): http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-ph...
Alternatively, Rasmussen says a majority do not approve. However, keep in mind the house effect of Rasmussen polling more republicans and the partisan divide may be driving this. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gene...
http://reason.com/archives/2013/06/14/nsa-confidential-we-lo...
I don't know why so many people can't understand that a bad law is a bad law, and judge it as such. The criteria for whether a law is any good ought to be (at least partially) based on whether or not you'd support it if your opposition party were able to use it. If the answer is 'No', then it's bad, simply.
As a guy who has never set foot in the States I found it strange when I first heard Dakota Fanning asking Tom Cruise "Is that the terrorists?" in Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" (when an airplane falls over the house they're in), I was asking to myself "why does the Americans' first instinct in case of unknown danger focus on terrorists?".
And talking about "the eye of Sauron", there is of course this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kytDzjuBGJI , which still gives me the chills. An under-estimated movie, IMHO.
What surprised me most at the time was the line of questioning of more or less all of the audience members. Against a background of shock and befuddlement that this had happened to an essentially benign US by an unknown extra national entity, the main question that followed was as to why the US was hated that much. It was simply incomprehensible to the audience. There appeared to be no awareness of the trouble brewing outside the country, even though the US government was engaged in one way or another.
Watching through this portal I was struck by how little the average American was aware of the real politics that existed in foreign policy terms visa vi the US. I thought at the time that the US would have a very difficult time developing a viable strategic response when the general population either misunderstood or simply hasn't any perspective at all on the place of the US in geopolitical terms. Observe George W Bush confusing Austria and Australia.
It was a massive shock, and the following response against an unknown enemy is partly based in that lack of perspective I'd say.
It may help, if this is at all right, to inform and educate the citizenry of these geopolitical nuances. Perhaps then some change to this general idea of 'terrorism' might occur in the public psyche, and as a consequence, expectations of viable strategy. But it's a tough ask. In lieu of that I'd expect a continuation of the dragnet.
Anyways, only underrated because expectations of Spielberg are deservedly high.
What we should, and can justifiably, be afraid of is "black swan" security events (such as 9/11). The Boston Bombers were horrible people, but they weren't threats to national security, and the bombing wasn't a "black swan" event. If (and these are big "ifs") the NSA is meaningfully restricted to defending the U.S. against foreign governments, and meaningfully restricted to uncovering plots to kill thousands, then I don't see where the privacy concern is.
We don't even need to talk about terrorism for that. Drug cartels and organized crime have for decades required the legal system to occasionally resort to gag orders and secrecy to avoid tipping off the "bad guys" before the legal system is able to act.
After all, the legal system is deliberate on purpose as to do otherwise would invite abuses of its own. I would be worried to live in a country where you could be locked up, arraigned, indicted, tried and convicted in just a day.
Public interest requires us to have enough due process that the system is inevitably slow. But a completely public system must operate much much faster to be effective against some types of "menace to society". This includes terrorism but is hardly limited to terrorism.
So absolutely we should have that public debate to figure out under what criteria we would operate NSA intel intercepts, what would be public, and what would be secret. But just don't be surprised if there are still secrets when it's all said and done, with a select group of persons to provide the accountability required to keep the system safe.
We do use similar systems for other very dangerous programs after all (e.g. nuc weps).
I believe that prior to Bush, some such system did exist with respect to some types of records.
The result? Won some, lost some, and the world moved on.
What's different now is that this surveillance is legal at scale because the majority of the populace wants it to be. They're more afraid of terrorists than having privacy. Look at the polls: Hacker News (and techies in general) seem to be in quite a bubble in this regard.
We have more clout than we did in the 90s, but the difference now is that there's a big Terrorism counter argument to anything we say. A majority of the USA prefers to have the electric eye of Sauron to watch over them, because the alternative -- more freedom that might lead to more terror attacks -- is too scary for them to accept. In that sense, the terrorists have won.
There are two viable paths going forward, in my view: (a) Work to convince people they want privacy, and don't want Brin's transparent society - this slows what appears to be the inevitable; (b) Work to ensure accountable oversight of surveillance. No more FISA secret courts, but real public courts and judges and warrants.
What's not likely viable is (a) encouraging people to stop using social networks -- they won't, we broadly LIKE being noticed by others, it gives meaning to our otherwise alienated capitalistic existence; (b) encouraging government to stop tracking people -- they're just getting into the game that Google and Facebook is in.
If a company can track people, so will the government. The key is that government can and must be held accountable to a degree that companies don't have to be. The US public has chosen not to exercise this power to date out of ignorance, laziness, and/or lack of desire.
The likely outcome of all of this is a resurrection and growth in the "darknet", where younger techies go to hide.