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Americans Generally Comfortable With Patriot Act
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| Contributor | User 13 |
| Last Edited | User 13 Mar 02, 2004 10:42am |
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| Category | Poll |
| News Date | Tuesday, March 2, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Few Americans say they are highly familiar with the Patriot Act, signed into law over two years ago, but most believe it is within acceptable bounds in its treatment of civil liberties. Furthermore, despite sharp criticism of the law by the American Civil Liberties Union, more Americans trust Attorney General John Ashcroft than trust the ACLU to balance the sometimes competing values of national security and civil liberties.
That is the positive spin suggested by poll data relating to the counter-terrorism law passed by Congress in the panicked weeks shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The negative spin is that Americans are at odds with some of its specific provisions.
According to a Feb. 16-17 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, only one-quarter of Americans (26%) believe the Patriot Act goes too far in restricting people's civil liberties in order to fight terrorism. Nearly as many (21%) think it does not go far enough, while the plurality (43%) believes it is about right. That represents a more than 2-to-1 balance of opinion against the idea that the act goes too far. Public reaction has changed little since first measured last August. |
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