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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Overall confidence in the police has risen slightly in the past two years, with 57% of Americans now saying they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in law enforcement -- matching the overall average for the 25-year Gallup trend.

The return to the historical average comes after confidence edged downward during the tumultuous years of 2014 and 2015. Overall confidence fell from 57% in 2013 to 53% in June 2014, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman's acquittal led to the founding of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Confidence in police then dropped to a record-tying low of 52% in June 2015, as the Black Lives Matter movement gained national attention with a series of protests against police shootings of unarmed blacks in New York City; Ferguson, Missouri; and North Charleston, South Carolina. As violence continued over the past two years -- with fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, followed by deadly attacks on police in Dallas and Baton Rouge by black men -- the percentage of Americans confident in the police climbed back to 56% in June 2016 and to 57% last month. Only two other institutions (the military and small business) of the 15 others measured this year scored higher than the police.

Overall Rise in Confidence Masks Drop Among Hispanics, Liberals, Younger Adults

Though the overall numbers have rebounded, the years of national turmoil have only deepened the divide in the confidence that Americans of different ages, ethnicities and political beliefs say they have in the police. The loss of confidence is most apparent among Hispanics, liberals and those younger than age 35.

Confidence in Police Rebounds for Some Groups, Drops for Others

Percentage who have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police

The overall percentage of Americans who said they were confident in the police changed little from 2012-2014 (55%) to 2015-2017 (54%). But major differences have emerged among various subgroups over the past three years.

The 2015-2017 polling, conducted in the wake of national protests in response to the 2014-2015 police shootings, shows a widespread loss of confidence among groups that generally are in line politically with blacks -- Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, Hispanics, liberals and those younger than age 35. Confidence among Republicans and Republican leaners, whites, conservatives and those aged 55 or older has been stable or has increased slightly. As a result, gaps between groups are now evident by age, ethnicity and ideology, along with a larger gap by party affiliation.

The difference is especially pronounced between liberals (39% confident in 2015-2017) and conservatives (67% confident). And in the June 2017 poll, the percentage of liberals who are confident is down to 38%, the lowest since at least 2000, while conservatives are at 73%, their highest mark going back to 2000.

Bottom Line

On the surface, Americans' confidence in the police appears strong and steady when compared with other U.S. institutions. In the 25 years Gallup has measured it, the percentage having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence has never varied by more than seven percentage points from the average of 57%. Confidence in the police has exceeded the average for all institutions by at least 10 points every year since the question was first asked in 1993.

A closer look, however, reveals a troubling loss of confidence among key groups in U.S. society. Police already must deal with low levels of trust among blacks, and a similar situation may be occurring among Hispanics. The lack of confidence among younger Americans could presage a growing loss of respect for police in the future. The continuing drop in confidence among liberals is already producing political repercussions.

Beyond those specific possible consequences, the loss of confidence among these groups creates yet another gap between young and old, whites and Hispanics, and conservatives and liberals, marking how divided the nation has become.

These data are available in Gallup Analytics.

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 7-11, 2017, with a random sample of 1,009 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

The combined polls from 2015 through 2017 include 3,563 respondents. The 2012-2014 combined polls include 3,560 respondents. The margin of sampling error for both groups of polls is 2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The combined polls from 2001-2011 include 10,949 respondents, with a margin of sampling error of 1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level. The smallest subgroup sample in any of the combined polls was the Hispanic sample in the 2012-2014 combined poll, with a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works.

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Confidence in Police Back at Historical Average - Gallup

The peace and quiet that envelope a lone hiker on a leaf-riddled trail or a rock climber perched on the top of a cliff seem a world away from the noise of a social media feed. But Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE) alumnus Jim Christian SM '14 had an idea to tap into the superabundance of social-media data to benefit athletes and outdoor adventurers. He, along with MIT Sloan School of Management alumnus Brint Markle MBA '14, created a device that could help determine avalanche risk. Their device has led to a network in which people can upload and share critical real-time information about the conditions including avalanche risk on a particular slope or mountain.

We want to crowdsource trip data and safety information for the outdoors, Christian explains. Their motivation inspired a free app, Mountain Hub, on which outdoor adventurers can share information to benefit others.

Mountain Hubs inception began far from muddy trails and snow-capped mountains. Safely within the halls of MIT, Christian was charged with designing a product that solves a real-life problem for course 2.739 (Product Design and Development). Inspired by Markles brush with a dangerous avalanche in Switzerland, Christian and his fellow students designed a probe with sensors to measure the structure of snow. The device could be used to quickly identify weak-layers in the snowpack critical features in assessing avalanche risk.

Traditionally, the industry method for avalanche risk assessment starts with digging a hole, analyzing the snow pack in that hole, and determining if there are any weak layers. Digging and assessing a snowpit can take close to an hour and provides just one data point. The scope Christian and his classmates constructed could gather a lot more data about the snowpack in just a few seconds, and it could assess an entire mountain slope in the time it takes to dig just one hole.

Jim and his team identified an important opportunity for a new product, says Warren Seering, the Weber-Shaughness Professor in MechE who co-taught 2.739. They all put a great deal of energy into the development process.

Christian and Markle walked out of the class with a proof-of-concept prototype for measuring snowpack, and along with MechE student Sam Whittemore, they co-founded Avatech, a company focused primarily on avalanche risk assessment. Avatechs first product was the SP1 a 5-foot long probe with pressure sensors that could collect 5,000 measurements per second. The SP1 instantly generates a graph showing snow layer hardness, which snow safety teams can use to identify weak layers. This information is vital for avalanche prevention.

It quickly became clear, however, that the data generated from this device couldnt exist in a vacuum. The information needed to be shared with those who would most benefit from it. Christian, Markle, and their team set out to build a network that would enable skiers or climbers to upload, share, and read real-time information about the slope or mountain they were on. The scope of the network became far greater than just snowpack assessment; customers wanted to share information about bike paths, hiking trails, and an assortment of outdoor activities.

Most mountain athletes do multiple activities all year round, says Christian. There is an opportunity for information sharing across these various activities. What a rock climber has to say about hazards on a trail is relevant to hikers and mountain bikers in the same area.

With this transition from scientific measurement tools to a social networking app, Christian and Markle rebranded their company as Mountain Hub. With technologies like a live map, terrain visualizations, and trip reporting, the app aims to diminish the danger associated with solitary or remote sports like hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, and skiing.

Christian hopes Mountain Hub will become a platform for people to share their experiences, access real-time conditions, and plan new adventures. We are spearheading a culture of contribution and sharing in the outdoors, Christian explains. We want to build a real-time network that has daily engaging content so that the first thing someone does before they hit the trail is open up our app.

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Using sensors and social networks to make slopes safer - The MIT Tech

Over the past two decades, weve witnessed the rise and fall of multiple online social networks. Nevertheless, unlike its predecessors, such as Friendster and MySpace, Facebook has managed to retain a number one position and continues to be a social networking phenomena.

Some industry insiders still believe that Facebook is slowly dying. But the old, in marketing terms, social media platform continues to disprove predictions and manages to deliver impressive numbers as our 2016 Facebook Report shows.

The story of why the social network continues to be one of the top places people visit is for another time. Discussing social-economic issues, the transformative times of inter-connectivity and why Friendster and Myspace didnt manage to achieve the long-term success Facebook did is quite an interesting one, but the numbers are not up for debate.

Instead, what we find most interesting is that social media marketers and brands seem to disregard the stats. While most are completely aware of the fact that Facebook videos generate more engagement than regular posts, only slightly above 50% of the pages upload videos. Not to mention, at most times, videos uploaded to the platform are short home-made videos that rarely have anything to do with the actual brand page.

Facebook Video often requires a lot of time, money and effort to create. Not to mention, the man hours and the expertise needed to come up with a professional-looking video.

In fact, as far as we know, most social media marketing agencies tend to be aware of the numbers, but are rarely incentivized to pursue such solutions. The primary reason behind the lack of pursuit is the low-value return in the target expectations of a client.

The most common case with social media marketing clients is that they require the best results at the most affordable price. Today, when huge agencies compete with small-time freelancers, prices of social media marketing services have come way down. This often results in underfunding of advertising and brand projects on social networking platforms. With that in mind, its easy to understand that the aftermath is the lack of investment in Facebook video solutions.

One of the main ways social marketing agencies go around this problem is via the long-term investment in video production solutions. Facebook isnt the only platform that supports video. In fact, both Twitter and Instagram offer video post integration.

Whats more, with a proper video production service, social media marketing agencies are able to expand to provide other solutions such as YouTube content creation. Video production can be a relatively affordable process if you use the right tools and experts.

Nevertheless, while Facebook video numbers tell a nice story, they dont necessarily show a need for future investment. In fact, in our recent Instagram report, weve taken a look at the fact that images generate as much as 31% more engagement than video posts.

That being said, investment into video production isnt the best option for everyone. Most often, the best solutions would be hiring a third-party for such projects. A strategy most social media marketers take is to first engage with their client and ensure the investment for the project beforehand, to avoid any losses. Whats more, if you have a few clients under your sleeve, you can always come up with a collaboration strategy on bigger projects and present them with the opportunity.

In case a brand is suitable for a long-term video project, such as weekly or daily Facebook video live streams, you can also consider hiring part-time video production assistants or even freelancers to complete such projects. When doing so, make sure to keep an eye on the numbers to calculate whether or not the boost in engagement is worth the investment for your client.

According to the latest numbers, Facebook Live is on the rise and it seems to be the better option for most brands. Compared to traditional videos, Facebook Live can lead to better engagement for a lower investment. Whats more, with a dash of creativity it can lead to some extraordinary results.

Take this years Subaru marketing stunt. The company has partnered with BuzzFeed to produce a Facebook live marketing video for the #MakeADogsDay event. It resulted in an increase in the overall engagement and reach of the brand.

Whats even better is that investment in Facebook Live can allow you to take advantage of all the benefits that come with Live streams, while at the same time producing Facebook videos. Subaru of America later went to post a video short that got more than 15,000 likes. Compared to the performance of other videos posted by the brand, the increase in engagement with the proper implementation of video is obvious.

Webcast, July 12th: How to Create a Social Media Giveaway That Gets Thousands of Leads Without Costing a Fortune

Quite infamous on their own, Refinery29 also made a huge marketing move last year and decided to go full-on with video ads. Partnering with SmartWater, the company realized a yoga video project with some big name celebrities and the use of Facebook Live, YouTube and even 360-degree video to increase its reach.

Nevertheless, the implementation of new Facebook Live and Facebook video strategies isnt limited to the big brands. In fact, there are quite a few examples of small brands making it big league by taking advantage of the new content platforms and sharing medium offered by the social networking media.

Benefit Cosmetics is a great example of how proper Facebook Video and Live solutions can lead to enormous success. Broadcasting a beauty tips show on a specific date and time each week, the brand managed to achieve a huge audience and currently boasts over 5,9 million likes.

Callaway Golf is another interesting story of how a golf brand managed to transition into social media and achieve over 600,000 likes in two years by taking advantage of Facebook live. In fact, theyve started their live show back in 2015.

Initially not uploaded on Facebook, but later transitioning into a live stream, the show is hosted by Harry Arnett, the SVP of Marketing and Brand Management.

Of course, Facebook live stream does work for some industries better than it does for others. For example, gaming websites, such as Kotaku, tend to do live streams of gaming sessions with moderate success.

Spinnin Records, a record label, also does live streams of DJs playing music at certain times via Facebook. They also use Facebook Live and Facebook video to promote new songs and upcoming events and albums from their artists.

Sports, beauty and cuisine based Facebook pages also tend to have an advantage in the use of video media.

Inexperienced with how social media works, many business owners decide to play it safe and bet on the platform they are most familiar with. Whats more, social marketers also tend to be satisfied with their knowledge of the existing platforms and abstain from trying out new strategies on new and upcoming social media networks.

This leads to a freeze of ideas and the flow of content becomes but a stream of predictable patterns. Instead, to be a successful social media marketer, you have to engage with the newest opportunities and push the limits of current social platforms. Successful marketers use online media to its full extent.

Check the numbers and see where people are headed. Then simply take the bus and arrive before them. Welcome your audience with something fresh, new and exciting. Its all about the creative thinking and riding the wave. Now we know that there are clients that wont budge and wont give you the opportunity to unleash your creative freedom. Nevertheless, do show them the numbers and ask them, if not to try out new social media platforms, at least to start taking advantage of Facebook Video and Facebook Live.

We hope weve inspired you at least a little bit. If you are interested in reading similar topics, make sure to regularly check out our blog.

Whats more, for more detailed Facebook Live and Facebook Video stats you can show off to your client, make sure to try out the 7-day full Locowise trial that gives you access to some amazing stats for your Facebook page, Twitter account and more.

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You Are Using Facebook Video Wrong! How To Get The Most Out of Video Sharing on Facebook - Business 2 Community

Back in 1986, Congress viewed communications over six months old to be abandoned and therefore subject to reduced protection, a notion that looks quaint today when emails and texts may be held for years.

Another provision of the statute allows investigators to obtain information from the provider about a subscriber to any electronic service, like cellphones, by seeking a court order based on reasonable grounds to believe that the records are relevant to a criminal investigation. This is a lower standard than probable cause, the usual requirement for a search warrant.

It is this lower threshold for getting information that is at issue in Carpenter v. United States, which the Supreme Court will hear in its next term starting in October.

The defendants were convicted of organizing a string of robberies in the Detroit area where they served as lookouts by parking near the stores. The government obtained orders directing wireless carriers to provide cell site location information showing where different numbers linked to the crew conducting the robberies were at the time of the crimes. Armed with data from various cell towers, prosecutors showed at trial that the defendants phones were a half-mile to two miles from the robberies, helping to link them to the actual perpetrators.

The defendants sought to suppress that information, arguing that it constituted a search of their phones so that the reasonable grounds standard in the Stored Communications Act for the order did not meet the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati rejected that claim, finding that although the content of personal communications is private, the information necessary to get those communications from point A to point B is not. Therefore, the defendants had no privacy interest in the information held by the carriers about their location and the constitutional probable cause requirement did not apply.

The Carpenter case raises a fundamental question about how far the privacy protection in the Fourth Amendment, which by its terms applies to persons, houses, papers and effects, should reach in protecting data generated by a persons electronic devices. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in Riley v. California, a 2014 decision, that cellphones are now such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.

In Riley, the court found that a warrantless search of an arrestees cellphone was unconstitutional, explaining that what distinguishes the device from other items that might be found on a person that the police could look at is their immense storage capacity. But rummaging through the contents of a phone or computer is not necessarily the same as getting site information that is broadcast to the carrier, especially when a person may enable it by using an app like Find My Phone.

In a 2012 case, United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court found that the use of a GPS tracker attached to a car was a search governed by the Fourth Amendment. Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in a concurring opinion that the privacy interests in a persons specific location required investigators to get a warrant because gathering that information enables the government to ascertain, more or less at will, their political and religious beliefs, sexual habits, and so on.

In the Carpenter case, the justices will have to weigh whether cell site data is different from a GPS tracker because learning where a person is within about a one-mile radius may not be a sufficient invasion of privacy to come within the Fourth Amendment. Nor does obtaining the location of a cellphone reveal the content of any communication, only that a call was made, so the protection afforded by the Riley decision may not apply.

Another case involving the Stored Communications Act that may come before the justices concerns the territorial reach of a warrant authorizing investigators to obtain emails held by Microsoft. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan, in Microsoft v. United States, found that the warrant did not apply to emails stored on a server in Dublin because there was no indication in the statute that Congress intended to authorize a search outside the United States.

The Justice Department filed a petition with the Supreme Court on June 22 asking for a review of that decision, arguing that it was wrong, inconsistent with this courts framework for analysis of extraterritoriality issues, and highly detrimental to criminal law enforcement. Those requests are often granted because the justices rely on the solicitor generals office to identify cases that have significant law enforcement implications.

Another factor in favor of granting review is that the Second Circuits decision has not been followed by federal district courts in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington and Wisconsin, which have enforced warrants to produce email records that may have been stored abroad. A note in the Harvard Law Review criticized the decision because it did not acknowledge the un-territorial nature of data.

Microsoft is fighting the effort to apply the Stored Communications Act to electronic records held outside the United States, pointing out in a company blog post that the European Unions new General Data Protection Regulation scheduled to go into effect next year will make it illegal to transfer customer data from Europe to the United States. That could put global technology organizations like Google and Microsoft in the difficult position of balancing demands for greater privacy with efforts to investigate crime that could result in large fines for failure to comply.

Determining how digital information fits under a constitutional protection adopted when there were only persons, homes, papers and effects that could be searched requires the Supreme Court to figure out the scope of privacy expectations in a very different world from the 18th century. The problem is that legal challenges take a piecemeal approach to a statute adopted over 30 years ago, and the courts cannot rewrite provisions that may be hopelessly out of date.

The House of Representatives adopted the Email Privacy Act in February to modernize the protections afforded electronic communications that would require obtaining a search warrant in almost every case. That proposal met resistance in the Senate last year when Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then a senator from Alabama, sought to add a provision allowing law enforcement to skip the warrant requirement in emergency situations.

Whether the legislation can get through the current Senate is an open question, and it is not clear whether President Trump would sign off if the Justice Department opposes the bill. That may mean the Supreme Court will have to establish the broad parameters of digital privacy while Congress tries to deal with the intricacies of a world of electronic communication that continues to evolve rapidly.

Devices connected to the internet, from cellphones to watches to personal training trackers that facilitate our personal habits and communications, are a fact of daily life, and the Supreme Court will have to start drawing clear lines around what types of electronic information are and are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Simply asserting that there is a right to privacy does not provide much help in determining how far that protection should extend in a digital world.

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Digital Privacy to Come Under Supreme Court's Scrutiny - New York Times

The following op-ed was co-authored by Ashkhen Kazaryan, an affiliated fellow at TechFreedom.

Early last month, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coatsreneged on a promisethat the National Security Agency would provide an estimate of just how many Americans have seen their communications collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It was the same broken promise made to Congress by his predecessor, James Clapper.

Indeed, for the past six years, the NSA has flummoxed congressional oversight with its reluctance to give lawmakers this kind of hard data. And yet, despite this pattern of obfuscation of promising transparency and then dialing back said promisesCongress is now debating a bill that would give immense power to that same agency.

The legislation, which has left many privacy advocates aghast, comes in the form ofa proposalby Sen. Tom Cotton,R-Ark., for a so-called clean reauthorization that would leave the current Section 702 intact. Of course, it isnt actually clean, in that Cottons bill would remove the sunset provision that forces the program to expireDec. 31unless Congress explicitly re-authorizes it. In other words, even as Coats now deems it infeasible that the NSA will ever tell Congress how many Americans have been surveilled under Section 702a number that likely would shock the conscienceCotton wants to ensure 702 is never up for debate again.

If the NSA will not honor promises to Congress and civil-society groups nowwhen 702, a program Coats has called thecrown jewel of the intelligence community, is up for reauthorizationhow is the public to trust the agency will honor privacy and liberty when the program becomes law in perpetuity? Make no mistake, this is not fear mongering. This is a constitutional issue where the very notion of checks and balances between the branches of government is quietly under threat.

Coatsexplainedto the Senate Intelligence Committee last month that the NSA ended about collectionthat is, the practice of collecting digital communications in which a foreign target is mentioned, but is not the sender or recipientdue to technical limitations on the agencys ability to protect wholly domestic communications. However, he didnt rule out resuming about collection if the agency discovers a technological fix. Paul Morris, deputy general counsel for operation at the NSA,toldthe Senate Judiciary Committee several weeks later they might decide to come back to it anytime. NSA representatives also havewarnedthey would oppose a permanent legislative ban on this type of collection.

A recurring theme from law-enforcement and intelligence community representatives in recent House and Senate hearings is that technological developments can drastically change how government conducts surveillance. But even as agency representatives tell us how rapidly surveillance methods change, a permanent reauthorization of current surveillance methods presumes that future revolutions in technology wont affect Americans relative privacy. Not long ago, few could have conceived of an email or that it would become a major tool of communication.

If the intelligence community decides to resume about collection, a method proven to have violated Americans rights in the past, Congresss oversight role should not be hamstrung by a permanent reauthorization. Eliminating the laws sunset provision would limit Congresss ability to revisit these questions and examine exactly how surveillance methods might change in the future. With far-reaching technological change always looming, Congress must periodically revisit the legal authority behind these intelligence tools both to ensure they remain effective at protecting the nation, and that adapting an old law to new technologies doesnt open the door to abuse.

Establishing a sunset for the program shouldnt be anathema to those who are primarily concerned with national security. To the contrary, it is the best way to ensure the program remains viable and accomplishes the purpose of keeping Americans safe. Permanent reauthorization would limit any attempts to modify surveillance. It also increases the risk of another leak and public outcry, which easily leads to a knee-jerk reaction. Intelligence agencies could shy away from reasonable and effective procedures, absent any obligation to report to congressional oversight.

A kid genius working from a basement today may change the way our systems work tomorrow, crippling the effectiveness of Section 702 or opening the door to abuse. Giving law enforcement and the intelligence communitys great power without built in opportunities to revisit that authorization would be a disservice to the security and civil rights of the American people. In the end, the most critical reform to Section 702 might already be part of thestatus quo.

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Granting NSA permanent bulk surveillance authority would be a mistake - R Street