Media conservatives cited faulty poll to
claim popular support for domestic spying program
Media Matters
January 3, 2006
Summary: Conservative media figures have defended the Bush administration's
warrantless domestic surveillance program by citing a Rasmussen poll saying 64
percent of Americans believe "the National Security Agency [should] be allowed
to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other
countries and people living in the United States." But the key issue, which the
poll misrepresents, is not whether surveillance of terrorism suspects should
take place at all -- something about which there is little controversy -- but
whether President Bush violated the law by approving warrantless searches of
domestic phone and email communications.
Conservative media figures have defended President Bush's authorization of
warrantless domestic surveillance by pointing to a recently released Rasmussen
poll showing that 64 percent of Americans believe "the National Security Agency
[should] be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism
suspects in other countries and people living in the United States." However,
the question they are referring to in the Rasmussen poll misrepresents the
issue for which President Bush has been criticized. The poll simply asked
whether the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept phone
conversations between "terrorism suspects in other countries and people living
in the United States." Bush has been sharply criticized on both sides of the
aisle for his apparent failure to comply with the requirements of the 1978
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which calls for the
administration to obtain search warrants before or after initiating domestic
surveillance in most situations. The key issue, in other words, is not whether
surveillance of terrorism suspects should take place at all -- something about
which there is presumably little controversy -- but whether Bush violated the
law by approving warrantless searches of domestic phone and email
communications.
The survey question is flawed in other respects, as well. It does not
mention that Bush apparently authorized this surveillance without the
meaningful oversight of any court or Congress. Moreover, while the question
suggests that Bush has authorized surveillance only between "terrorism suspects
in other countries and people living in the United States," in fact, the
program has reportedly captured conversations in which all parties were located
in the United States.
MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan, Washington Post columnist Charles
Krauthammer, CNBC host Lawrence Kudlow, and conservative radio host Michael
Reagan referenced the Rasmussen poll in defending Bush's authorization of the
NSA eavesdropping program. The poll, conducted December 26-27, asked
respondents: "Should the National Security Agency be allowed to intercept
telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and
people living in the United States?" Sixty-four percent of respondents answered
"Yes." But the poll omitted a key fact in the debate that has erupted following
The New York Times' disclosure of the domestic surveillance program. As
attorney Stephen Kaus noted in a December 28 entry on The Huffington Post
weblog:
Notice anything missing from the question? How about the part that the
wiretapping is done without a warrant, although there is a court set up to
consider the evidence and issue just such warrants. There is no doubt that the
FISA Court would issue a warrant to listen to calls between "terrorism suspects
in other countries and people living in the United States." All the government
needs is some articulable basis for the suspicion. Apparently that is what it
did not have.
If the polling question asked was "do you think that the government should
be able to listen secretly to any international phone calls to the United
States that it wants to on the approval of a shift supervisor at the National
Security Agency without a warrant or any court or legislative supervision
whatsoever," the numbers would be very different.
In his column for the January 9 edition of Time, Krauthammer wrote that
Democrats "dare not suggest that the program be abolished," because "according
to a Rasmussen poll, 64% of Americans, a free and very sensible people, support
eavesdropping on calls between suspected terrorists abroad and people in the
U.S." In a January 3 column for the conservative website FrontPageMag.com,
Reagan claimed that Bush is "climbing" in the polls, and cited the Rasmussen
poll as evidence: "Another poll on December 28, 2005, showed that a whopping 64
percent of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be
allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in
other countries and people living in the United States."
On the January 2 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Buchanan
claimed Bush's surveillance program is backed by the Constitution and the
American people:
BUCHANAN: He's not only right, Chris, the president of the United States,
something like 64 percent of the American people agree with him, 81 percent of
Republicans.
MATTHEWS: On what point?
BUCHANAN: On the specific point that the president of the United States has
the inherent authority to eavesdrop telephone calls overseas in a war on
terror. Fifty-one percent of Democrats agree with that, the Rasmussen poll. The
country is with him. This, excuse me, is very much a journalistic story.
In a December 30 National Review Online column, Kudlow, who serves as the
website's economics editor, wrote: "Worse, the Democrat's ACLU-type response to
reports of NSA eavesdropping without court warrants is a huge mistake. The
latest Rasmussen poll reports that 64 percent of respondents believe the
National Security Agency should be allowed to tap cell phones and e-mails in
order to intercept communications between suspected foreign and domestic
terrorists."
Additionally, on the January 2 Hardball, Newsweek assistant managing editor
Evan Thomas claimed: "I mean, I think although there is a fight starting on
Capitol Hill now and there is beginning to be some pushback, I think most of
the American people still support this kind of eavesdropping or are willing to
give the president a lot of license to go pretty far." Thomas offered no
justification for his belief that "most of the American people still support
this kind of eavesdropping." At the time of Thomas's statement, the Rasmussen
poll was the only major poll addressing the NSA program.
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