Overwhelming Public Support for Increasing Surveillance Powers and, Despite Concerns about Potential Abuse, Confidence that the Powers Will be Used Properly

Rochester, NY, October 3, 2001—In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there is overwhelming public support for giving the FBI and the police a broad range of new powers to increase security and make it easier for them to detect terrorism, identify and catch terrorists. At the same time, there are real concerns that these powers might be abused. When asked about ten specific proposals for new surveillance powers, more than 90% of the public supports three of them, between 80% and 90% support three more, and the rest are supported by between 54% and 68%.

These proposals, with the percentages of those that support and oppose them, include:

• The use of facial-recognition technology to scan for suspected terrorists (by 86% to 11%).
• Closer monitoring of banking and credit card transactions (by 81% to 17%).
• A national I.D. system (by 68% to 28%).
• Expanded camera surveillance on streets and public places (by 63% to 35%).
• Monitoring of Internet discussions and chat rooms (by 63% to 32%).
• Expanded monitoring of cell phones and emails (by 54% to 41%.).

These are the results of The Harris Poll®, a nationwide poll of 1,012 adults surveyed by telephone between September 19–24, 2001.

As these new powers for law enforcement officials might be abused, between 68% and 79% of the public have at least "moderate" concern about seven possible abuses. However, only between 32% and 44% have a "high" level of concern. Furthermore, the great majority of the public (87%) is at least somewhat confident that these new powers would be used "in a proper way."

• The profiling of people and searching them based on nationality, race or religion (44% highly concerned).
• That the mail, telephone calls, emails or cell phone calls of innocent people would be checked (45% highly concerned).
• That non-violent critics of governments would have their mail, telephone, email or cell phone messages tapped (38% highly concerned).
• That law enforcement would investigate legitimate political and social groups (32% highly concerned).

However – notwithstanding these concerns – the national mood, following the attacks of September 11^th, is far more willing to accept tough surveillance methods than it probably was previously.

These questions were designed with Dr. Alan Westin, one of the nation's leading experts on privacy issues and privacy related legislation, who believes that, "While heavy public majorities support expanding the powers of law enforcement to combat terrorism, three out of four Americans also want this to be done with legislative, judicial, and administrative safeguards built in. The prime survey message is: Proceed—but with great care."

Humphrey Taylor is the Chairman of The Harris Poll®, Harris Interactive.

Methodology

This issue of The Harris Poll was conducted by telephone within the United States between September 19–24, 2001 among a nationwide cross section of 1,012 adults. Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

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