[economicslol]

>As for individual citizens, it appears most still see the threat of asymmetric warfare as a more profound threat to their life and livelihood than passive, blanket government surveillance

I don't think this necessarily follows. I don't think most Americans support the Patriot Act but its basically known at this point that Public Opinion has no effect on Policy here. Also how much the public understanding of what the Patriot Act actually does is probably pretty low.

[shadowgovt]

Question wording drastically changes the results on polling whether people support the Patriot Act, but broadly speaking, it appears most Americans support its existence and most Americans believe it is in need of moderation. I don't think it's as simple as "Public opinion has no effect on policy;" it's that the policy response to "most people aren't happy, but nobody can gel behind a concrete changelist" is "stay the course."

I agree on the education question, but that's going to be a regular pattern in public polls. General public savvy on privacy issues and the power of technology to consolidate information has not kept up with technology. And, TBH, if the situation at hand is actually "Most Americans don't understand the problem well enough to articulate their wants in the context of the issue," that's a scenario where public opinion shouldn't drive policy. A democracy of the uneducated doesn't work.

[economicslol]

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

TLDR: Citizen opinions don't have an effect on policy.

I agree about education though. It's a tricky problem. Clearly people aren't informed enough to make coherent decisions on many policy issues but they have to trust that the slick looking lawyer they are voting for actually does understand and has their best interests at heart?