US President Barack Obama defended the Prism surveillance programme citing security concerns.
A survey by Reuters and Ipsos has revealed that about half of the US citizens are in favour of the government’s spying programme, if it is within limits.
The survey found that some of the citizens did not have any troubles with the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance programme, Prism, through which the personal details and Internet records of Americans were accessed.
Reuters survey revealed that more than one in three of those surveyed said the activity was completely unacceptable and others urged the government to balance national security with personal privacy and explain why the activity was necessary.
In the survey, about 35% said the NSA’s collection of domestic phone records should be acceptable under only limited circumstances while 13% said it would be acceptable under most circumstances.
According to the survey, about 47% said NSA can review their phone records if it has a good reason to do so and 44% were of the same opinion about Internet data.
Reuters said that many questioned what the NSA will gain from collecting data on such a wide swath of communications activity.
Recently, US President Barack Obama defended the Prism surveillance programme citing security concerns.
He said that US citizens and residents were not targeted in the programme.
