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A bit of good news for the 265 sitting members of Congress who voted to extend the legislation that the NSA claims as its mandate to collect phone data: the majority of Americans don't care. Pew Research today released a poll suggesting that 56 percent of the country thinks doing just that is just fine.

The firm, which has clearly been paying closer attention to the history of the NSA than many Americans, asked similar questions about the balance between privacy and terror investigations in 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2010. That history provides some insight into how attitudes toward the subject have changed. Or: haven't.

Asked if it was acceptable for the NSA to intrude on privacy in service to terror investigations, people in 2006, 2010, and today all expressed about two-to-one support for doing so.

