New poll, 66% SUPPORT latest NSA phone tapping scandal

[killerbush]

A new Washington Post/ABC poll is out this morning, took a snap poll to guage response to the latest scandal coming out of Washington, and to the surprise of me, and I think many others, Americans like their privacy invaded.

A full 66% say they support the administration in what they are trying to do. Of those 66%, 44% of them strongly support it. While only 35% disapprove of Bush's latest scandal, and of those 35% who disapporve, 24% strongly disapprove. P.S. please don't shoot the messenger, I'm only reporting on it.

I don't know about you, but to me, these number are just plain shocking!!!


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051200375_pf.html

[acmavm]

1. Who'd they ask?

The republicans in Congress and the Senate?

[JDPriestly]

2. Horrors! The questions must have been rigged.

I don't believe this for a minute.

[liberal N proud]

3. I don't know of anyone past the hard core bu$h lovers that support it.

This must be a canned audience just like the bu$h speeches.

[rox63]

4. That a pile of steaming crap propaganda if I ever heard one... n/t

[xray s]

5. lets see what they say in a few days

this poll has methodology problems.

it is probably just agitprop out of BushCo.

[ixion]

6. of all the polls I've seen on this, this is the ONLY poll to skew this way

hence I call shenanigans.

[robbedvoter]

7. Hallo, we're listening - are you OK with it, or are you a traitor?

Do you have anything to hide? This is an anonymous survey, conducted by AT&T, NSA and the CIA.

[rkc3]

10. Would you say Attila the Hun is doing an excellent job

or should be we burn your yurt to the ground now?

[Epiphany4z]

8. It seems strange

that a number to have 29% approval rating and have 66% think he is doing the right thing with this wire tap thing....I just don't think it works.

[WCGreen]

9. It actually makes sense, it a way......

Think about it...

Do you really thing Bush would have come out so soon and so hard to defend his position if they hadn't conducted polls to see which way the wind was blowing on this issue....

I felt that way when I saw him swagger out to face the press yesterday....

[leveymg]

11. Doesn't ring true. Inconsistent with other information coming in.

Did they just call people in the (801) area code?

Salt Lake City.

[Supersedeas]

42. it's unbelievable

[kenny blankenship]

12. Now that everyone KNOWS that Big Brother is listening on their phone line

what do you expect them to tell a pollster who calls them up on it?

[RaleighNCDUer]

33. LOL!

"Of course, I approve of EVERYTHING our Beloved Leader is doing!"

ON EDIT --

Paranoia CAN run deep. A couple weeks ago I got new glasses and declined to agree to a retinal scan as part of the eye exam -- not wanting to have my retinal scan connected to my VISA card and thus available in god knows how many data bases.

And it was just a fucking eye exam!

[No New War]

39. Yeah, DUH

You did the poll by PHONE you morons!

[Botany]

13. Possible reasons

The majority of Americans do not know the extent of spying.

The wording of the questions also can also influence the results.

[Champion Jack]

14. Can you hear me now?

Yes, you and everybody else

[jimshoes]

15. 66% of Americans do not support

anything this administration does. I do not believe this phony balony poll for a second.

[rniel]

16. I guess it's the scandal that wasn't a scandal

then. I can't believe those numbers. Especially from a president at 31% approval. I just wonder how the question was worded. They can manipulate how a poll comes out easily by changing a few key words.

[rniel]

21. I also think

That some of the people who disapprove of him are on the sole basis of they don't see him wanting to do anything about immigration, but those same people don't care that black people drowned in new orleans or we went to a war based on lies. These people hate bush, but will still vote republican

[sojourner]

17. you know...there IS an office for PsyOPS in the US. Includes "fake news"..

that's how I see this. Sorry. Too damn many people are pissed about this for that poll to be true. It's a lying piece of disinformation from the Ministry of Disinformation intended to calm the waters...convince those repugs who would stand up that "EVERYONE else thinks it's okay" so they'll all toe the line. Don't think that will really work, though. The backwash is only 30%- rest of us are onto the bastards.

[robbedvoter]

23. This is Karen Allen, reporting in NYC/Portland/DC/Boise/

But let's face it - polls are manufactured reality anyway, and a docile press will type the results, put them through the spell checker and serve. I never believed the 90% after 911 or the over 50 before/after election time - or ever for W for that matter.

[Norquist Nemesis]

36. ROFL!!! n/t

[reichstag911]

18. Gotta be a push poll.

It all depends on how they frame the question. For instance, if the question is "Do you support President Bush's terrorist surveillance program?" you're going to get pretty strong concurrence from the sheeple. Make it "Do you support President Bush violating the Constitution and statutory authority by his warrantless wiretapping and data mining of Americans?" and you're going to get diametrically different results.

[nickinSTL]

19. this poll is bs

pure propaganda.

[tanyev]

20. Da, Komrad!

[jojo54]

22. Then those phone records DID come in handy!!!

They showed the 66% of freeps that would stand by their man, no matter what.

"Sure, take my arms and my legs too! Just leave my eyes so I can still look on you with admiration Georgie!"

[robbedvoter]

24. According to threads posted here, not even 66% of freepers agree!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1143161

Those numbers were "tweaked" too.

[yellowcanine]

44. Actually those comments have to do with the "giving info on Minutemen to

Mexico" story. But I agree, this poll will not stand up over time.

[Loge23]

25. What's next? Home searches?

These poll #'s seem to suggest that most Americans say "Come on in!" and serve the fascists some pie to boot.
Is this country too far gone? It's beginning to look that way.

[cantstandbush]

26. It explains why Bush was able to steal two elections.

Unless there is a direct consequence to these idiots, they won't give a damn.

[demswin06]

27. Frankly I don't give a damn....

what the hell the sheeple think. If given the (false) analogy of between liberties and safety from "terarists" I'll take civil liberties 100% of the time. I'm not about to be lectured by Mr.29% about anything. If the sheeple are so sure that Bush will protect them from another attack,just look at his pathetic performance on 9/11 itself.I agree that we do need protection from terror and terorists,and the world's biggest terrorist is not OBL,but GWB.x( :evilfrown: :puke: :wtf: :scared:

[Sparkly]

28. I saw this and wondered EXACTLY what the questions were.

"Do you support the use of phone wiretaps for gathering intelligence on terrorism" is one question.

"Do you support warrantless wiretaps without oversight" or "Do you support a database of all Americans' calls without any assurance they aren't being misused" are other questions.

[blondeatlast]

30. The wording is everything, see below.

They included the "T" word--even though the wiretaps were conducted on TENS OF MILLIONS of American citizens.

[blondeatlast]

29. The questions are, well, iiiinteresting.... Note the use of the "T" word:

45. It's been reported that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the conversations. Would you consider this an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?


------- Acceptable ------ ----- Unacceptable ------ No
NET Strongly Somewhat NET Somewhat Strongly opin.
5/11/06 63 41 22 35 11 24 2



46. If you found out that the NSA had a record of phone numbers that you yourself have called, would that bother you, or not? IF YES: Would it bother you a lot, or just somewhat?

-----------Yes------------
NET A lot Somewhat No No opin.
5/11/06 34 24 10 66 *

TENS OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS are suspected of being terrorists? TENS OF MILLIONS?

Yeah, I'm confident in this administration, sure I am. :sarcasm:

[Sparkly]

32. Aha -- could you give me a link to that?

And, is that 34% "a lot" and 66% "no opinion?" :shrug:

[RaleighNCDUer]

35. It's the "six degrees of separation" thing.

Zarquawi makes a phone call, talks to a financial supporter in London. Financial supporter in London calls a cousin who works in a bank in New Jersey. Bank worker calls a college friend who collects classic cars in LA. Car collector returns a call from a movie producer who wants to rent his 1929 Stutz Bearcat for a film he's doing which stars Kevin Bacon.

Kevin Bacon is arrested for terrorism.

[shadowknows69]

31. most of the polls I read yesterday

were at least 70-30 against. There's been some polling mischief afoot.

[RethugAssKicker]

34. People don't understand the serousness of wiretapping...

[Norquist Nemesis]

37. 66% of 503 people polled in Utah

and 92% of them signed loyalty oaths at Bush rallys in 2004.

[SaveElmer]

38. Results not surprising...should not comfort Bush!!

I am not surprised by this...

The current generation of Americans have never had a serious breach of their civil liberties to the point where it affected them personally. By that I mean, no gestapo breaking down the door, no midnight visits from the thought police, no illegal searches, no quartering of troops; all things our founding fathers felt were important enough to protect us from (with good reason). Certainly those things have happened, but not to the vast majority of people.

The average persons attitude is going to be "I have nothing to hide," so they don't really care, and they are not educated enough about the early history of our country to know why they should care.

It is the same on a whole host of issues, "I'm never going to have an abortion, so who cares who goes on the court," "I'm a Christian, so it doesn't offend me to have a prayer in school"

I think though, that deep down, most people know that this is not entirely kosher, and although they respond this way in a poll, I would contend it still is one more thing about which they will view Bush negatively. The affect of all these is cumulative, which is why the poll numbers have been declining.

[Contrary1]

40. Not accurate...

"...A total of 502 randomly selected adults were interviewed Thursday night for this survey. Margin of sampling error is five percentage points for the overall results. The practical difficulties of doing a survey in a single night represents another potential source of error."

They should call the same 502 people back in a couple days, after they've had a chance to understand what's going on. I'm willing
to bet that a good percentage of these adults had not even seen the evening news.

[rhombus]

41. Read the last line

They acknowledge doing a hasty overnight poll which could result in error. How big of an error we don't know. I'll wait for a Gallup poll next week.

[yellowcanine]

43. Too early for accurate polling and question wording is crucial.

A lot of people haven't really heard about this story. The poll question might have been the first they heard of the issue and they might not have separated it from previous NSA stories. For example if the question is worded, "Do you support the government's use of domestic phone records to track down terrorists?" most people are going to say yes. Now the question was probably not worded that vaguely but that might be what many people heard if they haven't been paying attention. Give this thing at least one weekend of news shows and about one week on the internet and see what happens then. I think the Bushbots have misjudged the sentiment of the public this time. There are a lot of paleo conservatives who will be outraged by this. My guess is that the Bush numbers will be hovering at 25 % in 2 weeks. You heard it here first.

[Mr_Spock]

45. Stupid fucking Americans. They support violating the Constitution

Well, good thing we have a Constitution to protect us against even our own idiot citizens.

Bush MUST be impeached over this scandal if we are to continue as a Constitutional democracy.

There are no "ifs" 'ands" or "buts" about it - he HAS to be impeached.

It is required by law.