Jon:
Here’s what the NYT had to say about poll numbers conducted on the NSA surveillance program in January:
Americans are willing to tolerate eavesdropping without warrants to fight terrorism, but are concerned that the aggressive antiterrorism programs championed by the Bush administration are encroaching on civil liberties, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
In a sign that public opinion about the trade-offs between national security and individual rights is nuanced and remains highly unresolved, responses to questions about the administration’s eavesdropping program varied significantly depending on how the questions were worded, underlining the importance of the effort by the White House this week to define the issue on its terms.(emphasis, mine)
In other words, people seem to support it, but depending on how someone (Bush or [glee!] us) spin it, the public can be swayed.
The actual poll results aren’t reported till near the end of the story, after the reporter points out that “the Republican Party is now viewed unfavorably by 51 percent of the nation, its worst rating since Mr. Bush took office. By contrast, 53 percent said they held a favorable view of Democrats.”
Here’s what the story had to say about the poll numbers themselves:
The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush’s authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval “in order to reduce the threat of terrorism”; 46 percent disapproved. When the question was asked stripped of any mention of terrorism, 46 percent of those respondents approved, and 50 percent said they disapproved.
Notice the scare quotes, which I suspect prompted the reporter to refer to the American people as, to a “large extent perplexed as they weighed conflicting forces: the need presented by Mr. Bush to take extraordinary action to fight terrorism, and a historical aversion to an overly intrusive government.”
The Omniscient and puppeterring media.
