> There are significant partisan differences in views of the government's program to obtain call logs and Internet communication. Democrats are more likely to approve, by 49% to 40%. Independents (34% vs. 56%) and Republicans (32% to 63%) are much more likely to disapprove than approve.
It's too bad they didn't bother to separate "technologically clueless" from the "technologically clueful", which would probably speak volumes.
That's a fruitless way of approaching the problem. It plays into the political divides of "us" vs "them." By trying to establish groups of people as "clueless" about a topic, it just reinforces the feelings of, "they just don't get it" or "they wouldn't think that if they just knew better." All sides of an issue believe exactly that.
This reminds me to read a book that talks about this: "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion," by Jonathan Haidt. Maybe someone else has read it and can comment.
I'd imagine technologically clueless people have more of an expectation of privacy from internet communications than technologically clueful people that know that know that random sysadmins at dozens of companies have access to your data.
I wouldn't be surprised if some youngsters these days weren't aware that there'd been a Windows 3, while still being technologically savvy generally. Possibly 95 as well, although they could probably still get the order right just based on the pattern at that point.
It's too bad they didn't bother to separate "technologically clueless" from the "technologically clueful", which would probably speak volumes.