Americans are much less comfortable with the invasions of privacy that are central to national anti-terrorism efforts than they were two years ago, a new poll from Quinnipiac University indicates.
Responding to the question of whether government efforts to prevent terrorism “have gone too far in restricting the average person’s civil liberties, or … not gone far enough,” Americans were narrowly split in favor of more privacy, with 45 percent saying too far, and 40 percent not far enough.
The sentiment comes in sharp contrast to a similarly-worded study done by Quinnipiac in January 2010, in which 63 percent of Americans said that the government needed to do more to “adequately protect the country.” Back then, only 25 percent said that civil liberties received too little protection.
The largest divide on the question of anti-terrorism versus civil liberties was between men and women. A large plurality of women were in favor of a more restrictive security state, by a 47 to 36 percent margin. In contrast, a majority of men said civil liberties had been too minimized, 54 to 34 percent.
Politically, the debate has engendered rifts within both parties, with allies as unlikely as California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein and business tycoon Donald Trump defending the surveillance programs, and libertarian-leaning figures such as Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden condemning them. Democrats and Republicans that responded to the poll were similarly split, with 43 percent of Democrats saying anti-terrorism efforts had gone too far, and 42 percent saying not far enough. Republicans split 41 percent and 46 percent on the same question.
At the same time, a question related to the NSA’s collection of phone metadata seemed to indicate that Americans want to have their cake and eat it, too. Asked whether they supported the “government program in which all phone calls are scanned to see if any calls are going to a phone number linked to terrorism,” 51 percent said they approved and only 45 percent did not. At the very least, Americans see no contradiction between a program being both necessary and too invasive, as a majority called the program each of those things in back to back questions.
Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who leaked the existence of the National Security Agency’s data collection programs, received mostly positive impressions from those polled. 55 percent called him a “whistleblower” and only 38 percent a “traitor” in response to the poll’s final question.