A majority of Americans view the NSA phone metadata tracking program as an acceptable anti-terrorism approach, according to a new survey conducted by Pew Research in the last week.
Sixty-two percent of Americans say it is important for the federal government to investigate threats to national security even if those investigations intrude on personal privacy, according to Pew:
A majority of Americans – 56% – say the National Security Agency’s program tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post. And while the public is more evenly divided over the government’s monitoring of email and other online activities to prevent possible terrorism, these views are largely unchanged since 2002, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The survey, conducted June 6-9 among 1,004 adults, finds no indications that last week’s revelations of the government’s collection of phone records and internet data have altered fundamental public views about the tradeoff between investigating possible terrorism and protecting personal privacy.
Currently 62% say it is more important for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy. Just 34% say it is more important for the government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats. There are only modest partisan differences in these opinions.