The Votes Are In: Americans Don't Care About Privacy

Yesterday's election tells us two things: Americans are really, really unhappy with their government, and they care very little for their privacy and online civil liberties, at least as an issue that'll make them vote for or against a candidate.

Republicans won big Tuesday, presumably because people are frustrated with how the last two years have gone, and with Democrats in power, that's how these things tend to go, no matter how obstructionist both parties have been.

In the process, voters ousted one of the Senate's two major privacy, civil liberties, and NSA-reform-supporting lawmakers, Colorado's Mark Udall. In other states, voters overwhelmingly and repeatedly re-elected representatives who have shown they care very little for their constituents' privacy.

First, let's start with Udall, because his ousting is very, very important. He, along with Ron Wyden, have been among the most outspoken critics of the NSA (though both of them deserve a bit of shade for how they kept quiet about NSA spying pre-Snowden), and  replacing him with Cory Gardner, who hammered Udall on his weakness on terrorism and supports more moderate rollbacks of NSA power is a huge blow.

But it doesn't end with Udall: In Oregon,  the big telecom-backed and weak-on-privacy Republican Rep. Greg Walden smashed Aelea Christofferson, who campaigned on net neutrality. In New York, Rep. Peter King—who has actually pushed for more surveillance and wants to arrest and prosecute not only Snowden but also Glenn Greenwald—was easily reelected.

In Maryland, CISPA coauthor Dutch Ruppersberger easily beat David Banach, who  campaigned on the idea of ending NSA spying and abolishing the Patriot Act. In Maine, Senate candidate Shenna Bellows, a former ACLU executive well versed on civil liberties was destroyed by the incumbent Susan Collins, who has said NSA mass surveillance is "fair and useful."

In Iowa, the  country's most conservative Senate candidate, Joni Ernst, is noncommittal and vague about the NSA. And Tennessee reelected Marsha Blackburn, a complete train wreck and disaster for privacy and internet issues.

What does this mean? Well, it means that Americans don't care about privacy and civil liberties enough to make it an issue they're willing to vote on. Gardner ran a pro-life campaign and also cast Udall as someone who is close to Obama; Ernst and Blackburn win points among the right for being socially very conservative; Ruppersberger is a Democrat in liberal Maryland whereas Banach is anti abortion and otherwise very right leaning; Walden wants to repeal Obamacare; King has been around for two decades and seemingly has inertia behind him or something.

In other words, privacy is not a winning issue. Voters would probably prefer that their candidate support less NSA spying (two thirds of Americans are concerned about the NSA), but it's not important to them in the way that, say, abortion or the economy or gay marriage is. And, well, that sucks, because that means Congress can continue to steamroll your privacy and destroy the internet without there being any consequences.