More than half of American voters believe the National Security Agency’s sweeping collection of phone records undermines their privacy but a nearly equal majority said the surveillance program is necessary, a poll released Wednesday found.
The latest poll from Quinnipiac University found a growing number of Americans believe the government is overreaching in its counter-terrorism efforts. Forty-five percent said such anti-terrorism efforts go too far while 40 percent said they do not go far enough. It marks a huge shift since a Quinnipiac poll conducted in January 2010, when a whopping 63 percent said the government’s anti-terrorism policies didn’t go far enough while only a quarter said they went too far.
And yet a majority — 51 percent — said they support the “federal government program in which all phone calls are scanned to see if any calls are going to a phone number linked to terrorism.” Forty-five percent said they are opposed to the program.
The inconsistencies in the poll don’t end there. While 54 percent said the program is “necessary to keep Americans safe,” a near identical majority — 53 percent – said the program is “too much intrusion into Americans’ personal privacy.”
Quinnipiac’s latest poll also showed a majority of Americans regard NSA leaker Edward Snowden as a whistleblower rather than a traitor.
