12% See NSA Leaker Snowden As Hero, 21% As Traitor
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Americans have decidedly mixed feelings about the whistle-blower who exposed the National Security Agency’s secret domestic surveillance program, but then only one-in-three trusts those who are now defending the program.
Twelve percent (12%) of American Adults view Edward Snowden as a hero. Twenty-one percent (21%) consider the former independent contractor who has admitted leaking information about the NSA’s phone and e-mail surveillance program to be a traitor, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Thirty-four percent (34%) think Snowden falls somewhere in between, while 29% say it’s too early to tell. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on June 17-18, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.