Who cares what they think?
by digby
In January and June 2002, Republicans were more sensitive to security from terrorism than to protecting civil liberties. By September 2002, they shifted toward prioritizing civil liberties and have done so since. They have become even more likely to say civil liberties should be respected with Obama in office than they were when George W. Bush was still president.
Democrats have always given greater weight to protecting civil liberties, but in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 they showed a closer divide on whether civil liberties or security from terrorism should be the higher priority. Like Republicans, Democrats became more sensitive to protecting civil liberties over time. However, the current results suggest a dip in the percentage favoring the protection of civil liberties, perhaps relating to having a Democratic president — one who called on Congress to pass the USA Freedom Act — overseeing the federal government.
Natch.
The rub, of course, is what people define as an encroachment on civil liberties:
Some congressional critics of government anti-terrorism methods, most notably Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, argue that the government has too many powers in this area that violate citizens’ rights. The majority of Americans, 55%, disagree, saying they do not believe such government programs violate their civil liberties. But that leaves a sizable minority of 41% who do feel the government is violating their civil liberties. Gallup asked this question for the first time in the June 2-7 poll, so it is not possible to know whether these views differ from those in the past.
They broke it all down demographically and by ideological and partisan affiliation and nobody, not even self-identified liberals, said they thought that what the government is doing violates their civil liberties (although they were more likely than any other category to say that it is.) Non-whites agreed although we don’t have the breakdown of who that might be. Muslims might have a different opinion.
So, this is the problem. A majority of Americans don’t think that the government should violate individuals’ civil liberties for anti-terrorism purposes. But they clearly don’t understand what their civil liberties are and certainly not when they’ve been violated. It sounds as though they tend to count on their political leaders to police this and since the national security state pretty much controls both parties, they don’t actually do that. When the government passes some tepid reform like the USA Freedom Act they assume that whatever was wrong is now right and it’s all good. And slowly but surely those civil liberties erode without anyone realizing it until it’s too late.
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