A New York Times/CBS poll purports to find that support for the president’s warrantless surveillance program is “mixed.” But the poll is bogus. In addition to the usual MSM trick of over-sampling Democrats, including non-voters, etc., the pollsters asked misleading questions that do not reflect the actual nature of the NSA intercept program.
The Times finds that public approval of warrantless intercepts varies depending on how the question is framed. The Times already understood this phenomenon all too well. That, presumably is why it conducted a poll in which none of the questions asks respondents directly what they think about using warrantless surveillance in the case of suspected terrorists making calls from overseas to the U.S. Still, the more information the pollsters included that reflects the purpose and nature of the actual administration intercept program, the more willing respondents were to support the program. For example, almost 70 percent of Americans answer “willing” to this question:
In order to reduce the threat of terrorism, would you be willing or not willing to allow government agencies to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of Americans that the government is suspicious of?
Ankle Biting Pundits has the details.
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