global public issues

Wenn jemand eine deutsche Übersetzung dieses Textes braucht, schreibt einen Kommentar [If anyone needs a German translation of this text write a comment]

The mass surveillance by national secret services is an issue which is relevant to all human beings since it infringes their civil right of privacy and protection against searches and seizure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_and_seizure by public authorities.

In a court ruling in autumn 2013 a federal judge of the United States of America ruled that the NSA's mass surveillance practice violates the US constitution, see
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/16/21925625-federal-judge-says-nsa-program-appears-to-violate-constitution?lite especially  the fourth amendment to the constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution Shortly after that another judge ruled to the contrary http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/27/22072205-new-york-federal-judge-rules-nsa-phone-surveillance-is-legal?lite . So far it is insecure to let this question  in the hands of the judicative power of a nation state. A clear public will in this question  can help national governments and legislations to come to better solutions.

Since it concerns all human beings on this planet why not gathering their opinions?

Could this be done via internet? Is there already a suitable site at hand? Wouldn't it be useful to establish a common known site which allows people around the world to contribute to the collection of their opinion to questions of major global public interest?

Regarding a global internet survey the Internet Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Society has published a global internet user survey https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/global-internet-user-survey-2012 with data form 2012 where I could not find information to this question. When I contacted them, suggesting to include this question in their next survey, I received no answer.

When one searches for "global public issues" one hit is a study by "world public opinion"  http://worldpublicopinion.org/index.php publishing data form 2004 http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btglobalizationtradera/90.php?lb=brglm&pnt=90&nid=&id= with no possibility for individuals and the civil society to name relevant questions by themselves. I envisage a site where everyone can raise questions which then  can be answered and ranked by all others so that over time it becomes clear which questions are of major public global interest and how the people of this planet think about them.

Another hit links to the Council on Foreign Relations, a national oriented think tank with a survey on global public issues with data from 2010 - 2012 http://www.cfr.org/thinktank/iigg/pop/ I have no clue whether useful data can be expected from this source to the question of mass surveillance and whether something will be published in the near future. However I would rather prefer a more independent site for this field.

So why not establishing a suitable site?

Could it be that public opinion especially on a global level will be too fragmented, too heterogeneous in order to get some useeful impact out of its collection? To decide this one might only be able to trust ones own intuition and try it out. From a civil rigths perspective the human common grounds outweigh their differences by far so that it does make sense in my opinion. So who likes to participate might leave a comment in this blog or send me a twitter message to @FrankGiebel