Ideology and Government Spying

Fascinating graphic from 538 showing who voted for the Patriot Act extension in 2011. You can see that even under a Democratic president, more conservatives supported than liberals, and that the "establishment vs. outsider" axis matters nearly as much as party affiliation. So if we get enough Tea Party outrage going against "Obama's spying" to shift fifty Republican votes, and maybe a few outsider-leaning Democrats, we might actually be rid of this horrible law.

I am not, myself, up in arms over the NSA revelations; to my mind this is not a clear-cut crime like torturing prisoners. But I would almost always prefer less government snooping than more, and since I have never lost a minute's sleep worrying about terrorism, I would be happy to see the Patriot Act repealed.