Report: Support for U.S. Surveillance Wanes
By Lisa Gill NewsFactor Network April 4, 2002
The poll's deepest dip showed up in interviewees' declining confidence
that government will use its expanded electronic monitoring capabilities
in a proper fashion.
A poll taken just after the six-month anniversary of the September 11th
attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon showed that
Americans' support for and confidence in electronic governmental
surveillance is waning.
The new poll, conducted by Harris Interactive, said that immediately
after September 11th, supporters of government surveillance of e-mail and
cell phone conversations were in the majority at 54 percent.
But the research firm found that group is now in the minority, with just
44 percent of respondents supporting monitoring.
Fifty-five percent of respondents favored government monitoring of
Internet chat rooms and other forums, compared with 63 percent in
September.
Also, 9 percent fewer respondents favored closer monitoring of banking
and credit card transactions to trace funding sources.
Results Event-Driven
Privacy Foundation executive director Stephen Keating told NewsFactor
that he is not surprised by the results. He noted that a similar change
in U.S. sentiment occurred after the Oklahoma bombing in 1995.
"I think those polls are driven by events and a psychological state
of mind, rather than real knowledge of whether we're any less or more
secure. We haven't had significant domestic terrorism since September
11th, so people are feeling less vulnerable," Keating said.
Government Confidence Declines
The greatest change was apparent in interviewees' distinct lack of
confidence that government will use its expanded electronic monitoring
capabilities in a proper fashion.
Fourteen percent fewer respondents than in September said they are
"very confident" or "somewhat confident" that the
government will not abuse its monitoring capabilities.
In response to this decline in trust, Keating noted that it is difficult
for the American public to discern how effective the government has been
in fighting domestic terrorism.
"It's hard for people to evaluate if, say, the Patriot Act has had
some effect. We haven't seen evidence, or we haven't been told, that [the
government] has prevented new acts of terrorism," he said.
Other Security Measures Drop
The Harris poll also found that support for face recognition technologies
that can scan audiences at public events for suspected terrorists has
dropped by 5 percent since September, to 81 percent. A similar decline
has occurred for support of expanded camera surveillance of public
streets and other public places.
Support for adoption of a national identification system for all U.S.
citizens dropped by 9 percent since September, to 59 percent.
Harris Interactive polled 1,017 people over the telephone between March
13th and March 19th, with accuracy of plus or minus 3 percentage
points.
Americans at Odds
Martin Yeung, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and
Technology, told NewsFactor he believes that while the United States is
not in fear for its immediate security, the nation remains uncertain of
how to maneuver through a changing security climate.
"I think the American people are trying to grapple with the
situation, with the new realities. We're trying to balance security
concerns versus the right to privacy and civil liberties," Yeung
said.
Fear Not
Harris developed the poll with Dr. Alan Westin, a privacy issue analyst,
who noted that the poll's results indicate Americans are less fearful for
their safety than they were in September.
"The high-anxiety, very high approval rates for expanded law
enforcement powers expressed in late September 2001 have moved, six
months later, to a still high but somewhat more cautious level,
reflecting American concerns that liberty and due process intrusions be
kept to the necessary minimum," Westin said.
Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center
(EPIC), told news sources that he believes there has been an increase in
discussion about civil liberties since September 11th. He also noted that
the poll results are more conservative than those obtained by similar
surveys.
EPIC, which has fought hard against a national identification system, has
filed suit against the Office of Homeland Security seeking the expedited
release of documents regarding development of such a system.
-end article-
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-InfoWarz
Tod Zur Neuen Welt Reihenfolge
"Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous
surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files
containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These
files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities"
-Zbigniew Brezinsky, Advisor to Jimmy Carter, Founder: Trilateral
Commission, Traitor, Control Freak.
