After the Edward Snowden revelations about the National Security Agency's wide-spread spying on the Internet, one might have expected the web-loving masses of young people to develop a poor impression of the agency.
But, according to a new Pew Research Center poll, nothing of the sort has happened. In fact, people aged 18-29 have the most favorable impression of the NSA of any age range, education level, or political affiliation. Women and Democrats were also more likely to have a favorable impression of the NSA than other people. The group with the least favorable impression of the NSA are people aged 65+.
The agency's overall popularity has fallen a few percentage points since the fall of 2013. And when we compare the NSA's numbers to other prominent Federal agencies, it only outranks the Internal Revenue Service.
The Centers for Disease Control—despite the fears around ebola—remains at the top of the rankings, followed by NASA, which capitalizes on the charisma of the heavens by broadcasting pictures of space.