More Americans see man who leaked NSA secrets as 'patriot' than traitor
Surprise: press has large effect on what people think was actually leaked.  I'm sure 99% of those interviewed have no idea what he actually leaked entailed. I'd be more interested in a study that asked people if they knew what they were actually outraged about. A majority of the insinuations of the original "leak" have since been retracted and those actually following the details of the story have no belief that there is anything illegal going on.<p>Real opinion pieces that actually ask the hard questions like "should the government know less than Google" are all but ignored, in favor of 6 year old backdoor "zero-days", frontpage'd on HN, for applications that have been out of favor for even longer, or politically motivated 'stub' court cases that aren't expected to go anywhere. It has all the indications of a coordinated media event, not a real political scandal.  Nobody really cares what's going on, we just care that there is popular support going forward. Popular support for what exactly?  for general NSA outrage?