A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that nearly half of all Americans say the U.S. government’s broad surveillance tactics are acceptable within limits and also found widespread concern about the methods that were revealed last week.

The poll also found that “few were completely untroubled by the news that the National Security Agency has been secretly monitoring telephone and Internet activity of millions of Americans. More than one in three of those surveyed said the activity was completely unacceptable. Others sought a middle ground, saying the government needed to balance national security with personal privacy and explain why the activity was necessary.”

“I’m worried about somebody in our government might kill him with a cruise missile or a drone missile.”

— Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), quoted by the Huffington Post, on the safety of NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

New York Times: “For years, intelligence officials have tried to debunk what they called a popular myth about the National Security Agency: that its electronic net routinely sweeps up information about millions of Americans…. But since the disclosures last week showing that the agency does indeed routinely collect data on the phone calls of millions of Americans, Obama administration officials have struggled to explain what now appear to have been misleading past statements.”

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post notes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) chastised lawmakers who claimed they were in the dark about the programs: “For senators to complain that ‘I didn’t know this was happening,’ we’ve had many, many meetings that have been both classified and unclassified that members have been invited to.”

Wonk Wire: Can we trust the NSA with our secrets?

“U.S. intelligence operatives covertly sabotaged a prominent al-Qaeda online magazine last month in an apparent attempt to sow confusion among the group’s followers,” the Washington Post reports.

“The operation succeeded, at least temporarily, in thwarting publication of the latest issue of Inspire, the English-language magazine distributed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. When it appeared online, the text on the second page was garbled and the following 20 pages were blank. The sabotaged version was quickly removed from the online forum that hosted it, said independent analysts who track Islamist militant Web sites.”