Large Majorities of Public Support Surveillance of Suspected Terrorists

A Harris Poll conducted in late July, before news of a terrorist plot to blow up U.S.-bound airplanes broke, found that large majorities of U.S. adults support strong surveillance measures when dealing with suspected terrorist activities. Given that this poll was conducted prior to the British arresting people suspected of a plot to blow up planes between the U.S. and the U.K., it is possible that opinions about government surveillance in the U.S. may have changed.

This Harris Poll found that when law enforcement agencies are investigating terrorism:

• 70 percent of all adults favor "expanded camera surveillance on streets and in public places" – something which is currently more widespread in Britain than the United States.
• 61 percent favor "closer monitoring of banking and credit card transactions".
• 62 percent favor "law enforcement monitoring of Internet chat rooms and other forums".
• While the public was still divided on whether the government should expand the "monitoring of cell phones and email," a modest 52 percent to 46 percent majority supported it. In February, a modest 55 percent to 44 percent majority had opposed it.

These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone by Harris Interactive^® between July 21 and 24, 2006.

While most of these majorities favoring tougher surveillance are substantial, it is important to note that most U.S. adults do not believe that activities such as these should be done without congressional authorization. Less than four in 10 adults said that the president should be able to authorize any of the following by executive order without congressional approval:

• Collecting the records of telephone calls made inside, or into, the United States (38%)
• Monitoring cell phone and email (35%)
• Monitoring international financial transactions (35%)
• Monitoring the content of Internet discussions (31%)

Other interesting findings in this survey include:

• A modest 54 percent to 45 percent majority gave President Bush negative ratings on fighting terrorism. (These results may be partly a "halo effect" of the President's negative job rating. However, it is possible that this may have changed since the arrests in Britain.)
• A 50 percent to 42 percent plurality believed that the government’s programs for investigating terrorist activities strike the right balance between investigating terrorism and protecting civil liberties.
• While only 47 percent of adults were even somewhat familiar with the Federal Government’s analysis of millions of telephone traffic records, most people (by 60% to 35%) support this program when they are told about it.

Harris Interactive asked Dr. Alan Westin, the noted authority on privacy issues, and the publisher of Privacy and American Business, to review these findings. According to Dr. Westin, "Since 9/11, the Bush Administration has maintained that it has the constitutional mandate to conduct a wide range of anti-terrorist surveillance operations under the president’s own executive authority. While majorities continue to support these investigative programs as necessary, 59% to 66% of Americans now feel that such programs should be done ‘only with Congressional authorization.’ This reflects the historic American belief that serious intrusions into the civil liberties of individuals – even when justified – need Congressional standards and oversight, to guard against potential abuses and over-reaching by the executive branch."

"Here are some increased powers of investigation that law enforcement agencies might use when dealing with people suspected of terrorist activity, which would also affect our civil liberties. For each, please say if you would favor or oppose it."

Base: All Adults

Note: Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.

"Now, regardless of whether you favor or oppose each of the following powers of investigation, do you think this use of investigative powers by the president should be done under his executive authority without needing Congressional authorization, or should this use of investigative power by the president be done only with Congressional authorization?"

Base: All Adults

Note: Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.

* Less than 0.5%.

"How would you rate the job that the Bush administration has done fighting terrorism – excellent, pretty good, only fair, or poor?"

Base: All Adults

Note: Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.

* Less than 0.5%

"Overall, based on what you may have seen, read or heard about the U.S. Federal Government’s programs for investigating terrorist activities, do you think that the government’s programs strike the right balance between investigations of potential terrorism and protecting civil liberties, or not?"

Base: All Adults

Note: Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.

"How familiar are you with the program where the U.S. National Security Agency as part of its efforts to investigate terrorism requested that telephone companies in the U.S. provide millions of telephone traffic records about which numbers called other numbers – very familiar, somewhat familiar, not very familiar or not familiar at all?"

Base: All Adults

Note: Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.

* Less than 0.5%

"Based on what you may know about this program to obtain telephone traffic records, would you say that you favor or oppose this government program?"

Base: All Adults

Note: Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.

* Less than 0.5%

This Harris Poll^® was conducted by telephone within the United States between July 21 and 24, 2006 among 1,000 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region, number of adults in the household, number of phone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

All surveys are subject to several sources of error. These include: sampling error (because only a sample of a population is interviewed); measurement error due to question wording and/or question order, deliberately or unintentionally inaccurate responses, nonresponse (including refusals), interviewer effects (when live interviewers are used) and weighting.

With one exception (sampling error) the magnitude of the errors that result cannot be estimated. There is, therefore, no way to calculate a finite "margin of error" for any survey and the use of these words should be avoided.

With pure probability samples, with 100 percent response rates, it is possible to calculate the probability that the sampling error (but not other sources of error) is not greater than some number. With a pure probability sample of 1,000 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/-3 percentage points. However that does not take other sources of error into account.

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