NYT: New Poll Finds Mixed Support for Wiretaps

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/politics/27poll.html?hp&ex=1138338000&en=34b99413dcd9a25e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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.

Complete Poll Results 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.

The poll, conducted as President Bush defended his surveillance program in the face of criticism from Democrats and some Republicans that it is illegal, found that Americans were willing to give the administration some latitude for its surveillance program if they believed it was intended to protect them. Fifty-three percent of the respondents said they supported eavesdropping without warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism."

The results suggest that Americans' view of the program depends in large part on whether they perceive it as a bulwark in the fight against terrorism, as Mr. Bush has sought to cast it, or as an unnecessary and unwarranted infringement on civil liberties, as critics have said.

[spindrifter]

1. Arggh!

I can't stand these weak willies who don't get what protection of civil rights means. Please--turn off your freaking TV's and start thinking!

[Rose Siding]

2. How do they know WHAT it's for if there's NO oversight?

Idiots.

[Ilsa]

7. Can you imagine:

"Honey, ignore the camera over there in the corner of the bedroom. Two guys in blue windbreakers came in today and said they needed to put it up as a matter of national security. One of them looked alot like the pervert next door, so I guess he got a job with them, so this must be okay, right?"

[kainah]

3. "Give me liberty or keep me safe!"

Isn't that the way it goes??

[Hissyspit]

4. It doesn't matter how many support it!

It's illegal and un-Constitutional!

[rodeodance]

5. the terrorism angle is seductive to many

The results suggest that Americans' view of the program depends in large part on whether they perceive it as a bulwark in the fight against terrorism, as Mr. Bush has sought to cast it, or as an unnecessary and unwarranted infringement on civil liberties, as critics have said.

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. Gee! I wonder if the 24 hours of non stop BS and psyops being

directed at the American people by the mainstream media has anything to do with the "confusing" results? If the MSM conscientiously reported on one tenth of Smirky's scandals, crimes and incompetence, he would already be impeached.

[Straight Shooter]

8. Well, they added a heapin' dose of "pertectin' ya" to the Kool-Aid.

Looks like it's starting to take effect. Idiots!!!!

[PBass]

9. Uh, hold your horses

I'll bet dollars to donuts that most Americans are totally clueless about the extent and the purpose of the spying, why it is illegal, what it can and cannot accomplish, etc. As the facts become more well-known I fully expect that the polling will change!

Lets face it: Most people are woefully under-informed! Think about how many people supportd invading Iraq in the beginning, based on media spin (the bogus Iraq-911 connection). Look at the numbers now, as the facts are getting more widely known.

Rather than getting disgusted, lets try to get the domestic spying issue a little more visibility, and make an effort to get all the facts out (to the extent that we can).

[Straight Shooter]

12. Review what has been happening with the polls vis-a-vis disinfo campaign.

Americans choose to be clueless. At the beginning there was outrage and it has slowly begun to change into acceptance, with the disinformation campaign wherein bush and his minions fail to inform about how FISA acts, that bush did in fact break the law (so WTF does it matter if he thinks it's justified or not), and they will not release the names of those being eavesdropped upon, and they began spying before 9/11 and yet ignored the Phoenix memo, and on and on and on, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.

No, the longer this goes on, the more Americans are brainwashed, because they don't want to accept that Little Boots just gets his kicks from power over the people. Protect us, my a**. He won't even go to the funeral of a soldier, what the hell does bush care who lives and dies in this country as long as it doesn't touch him in his bubble.

[wellst0nev0ter]

10. Morans

In the poll, 70 percent of respondents said they would not be willing to support governmental monitoring of the communications of "ordinary Americans"; 68 percent said they would be willing to support such monitoring of "Americans the government is suspicious of."

I'm gonna say this as calmly and as uncaplocked as I possibly can: What the fuck is the matter with these chickenshit fuckwits??!! Civil liberties for me but not for thee, Jesus H. Christ on a trailer hitch what's the weather like up those asses?!! Must they read their secret government files in glossy paperback before they finally wake the fuck up? Man alive, Herman Goering didn't need a fucking degree to figure these sheeple out. Here's a newsflash for you shit-sleeved, triangle-headed jackholes: Bush spied on innocent people and left the terrorists alone

January 17, 2006
Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends
By LOWELL BERGMAN, ERIC LICHTBLAU, SCOTT SHANE and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the
National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone
numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists.
The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out
thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead
ends or innocent Americans.

MORE. . .

I know, it didn't have the extensive coverage of a presidential blowjob, but read goddammit!

</rant>

[zann725]

11. Was anyone HERE polled on the issue?

n/t

[ninkasi]

13. I don't understand it

I will never understand the apparent willingness of American citizens to give up their civil liberties for the illusion of safety. Life has never been safe. When my ancestors came to this country in the 1600s and settled in Virginia, I seriously doubt if their lives were as safe as they had been back in England and Ireland. They came in hope of a better life, and were willing to give up the known for that chance.

Now, we face natural disasters, and as we clearly see from the aftermath of Katrina, the government is completely unable, or unwilling, to furnish safety to United States citizens. We have a government which lets people go homeless, go without food or health care, which does nothing to stop the outsourcing of American jobs, and yet the last thing every American, no matter how poor could claim...liberty...is now being taken away, too. Does it matter if granny dies from some terrorist attack, or from inability to heat her home?

If we don't stand up to this president, as Americans, and insist that the liberty that has been the pride of Americans for generations is preserved, then maybe we don't deserve it. Maybe we don't value it enough to stand up and fight for it. I would rather take my chances that the already in force provisions of the FISA courts are more than sufficient to allow the government to follow potential threats to this country.

What good is the intelligence, anyway, if it is ignored, the way Bush ignored the PDB of August, 2001? We had enough evidence then to stop the 9-11 attacks, but the intelligence was botched, either through incompetence, or by design. Clinton tried to warn Bush about Al Qaeda, and was ignored. Bush wants to spy, and it has nothing to do with keeping Americans safe, and everything to do with seizing more power for himself.