Posted by Orin Kerr:
What Do 44% of Americans Believe?:
Newspapers and websites around the world are reporting what purports
to be the results of a Cornell University poll on attitudes of
Americans towards Muslims in the United States. The newspapers and
websites are reporting that 44% of Americans say that they want to
curtail the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Here is the summary
from the [1]Associated Press:
Nearly half of all Americans surveyed said they think the US
government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans,
according to a nationwide poll.
. . .
The survey indicated that 44 percent of those surveyed said they
favored at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim
Americans. Forty-eight percent said liberties should not be
restricted.
These are extremely disturbing figures that will be accepted by
hundreds of millions or even billions of people around the world. But
there is something important that the press reports overlook: the 44%
of people polled did not actually say that they wanted to curtail the
civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Rather, 44% of peple reported
views that the Cornell University pollsters themselves categorize as
being support for the curtailment of the civil liberties of Muslim
Americans.
I found the report on the poll [2]here. It turns out that the
pollsters asked people to agree or disagree with four statements:
1)Muslim civic and volunteer organizations should be infiltrated by
undercover law enforcement agents to keep watch on their activities
and fundraising.
2) U.S. government agencies should profile citizens as potential
threats based on being Muslim or having Middle Eastern heritage.
3) Mosques should be closely monitored and surveilled by U.S. law
enforcement agencies.
4)All Muslim Americans should be required to register their
whereabouts with the federal government.
For each of these statements, between 20 and 30 percent of the
subjects agreed; most disagreed. Overall, the study reports, 29% of
the subjects agreed with 2 or more of these statements, and 15% agreed
with one of them. (Some of these numbers don't quite add up, I think,
but see page 6 of the report for the figures.)
I don't want to be nitpicky, but am I right in thinking that a
certain amount of spin is involved in how this poll is being reported?
The pollsters made a judgment call that if you agree with any one of
these statements, you are in favor of curtailing the civil liberties
of Muslim Americans. Thus, the pollsters are claiming, and advocacy
groups such as CAIR are trumpeting, that 44% of Americans are in favor
of curtailing the civil liberties of Muslims.
But is that really what the poll shows? Most of the questions are
quite vague, and use lots of buzzwords. Take the first statement:
"Muslim civic and volunteer organizations should be infiltrated by
undercover law enforcement agents to keep watch on their activities
and fundraising." Imagine that you think it would be a good idea for
the FBI to send an undercover agent to a mosque to check out a
particularly radical cleric known to have been supportive of the 9/11
attacks. You could reasonably answer that you agree with the first
statement. Does that really mean you want to curtail the civil
liberties of Muslims?
Of course, this is not to say that the poll results are heartening.
In particular, it is very disturbing that 29% of Americans would agree
that "All Muslim Americans should be required to register their
whereabouts with the federal government." I can imagine less damning
explanations for this figure, but it is on the whole quite troubling.
Nonetheless, the press reports around the world suggesting that 44% of
Americans want to curtail civil liberties of Muslim Americans would
appear to be at least misleading.
References
1.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/12/18/44_in_poll_ok_limits_on_rights_of_muslims/
2. http://www.comm.cornell.edu/msrg/report1a.pdf
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