While civil libertarians have been very vocal in their opposition to the U.S. government's domestic data gathering programs, the results of a new survey by the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post showed that a majority of Americans approve of the efforts to investigate possible terrorist threats.
The poll found that 56 percent of Americans think tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans is an "acceptable" way for the government to investigate terrorism, while 41 percent said it is "unacceptable."
Last week, British newspaper The Guardian revealed that the FBI was granted an order to collect telephone records from millions of U.S. customers of telecom giant Verizon (VZ).
The Guardian said the order covered the telephone numbers as well as the location, time and duration of the calls but not the content of the conversations.
The latest poll results are similar to the results of an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in January of 2006 regarding the Bush administration's surveillance program.
While the overall numbers are similar, however, Pew noted that Republicans and Democrats have very different views of the two operations.
Republican support for the surveillance programs has dropped considerably under the Obama administration, while a majority of Democrats now support the program compared to the majority that opposed the program under Bush.
Overall, the poll showed that 62 percent of Americans say it is more important for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats than to not intrude on privacy. Thirty-four percent said it is more important for the government to not intrude on personal privacy.
Sixty-nine percent of Democrats said it is more important for the government to investigate terrorist threats compared to 62 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents.
Meanwhile, Pew said the public is more divided over the government monitoring internet activity in order to prevent possible terrorism.
While 45 percent of Americans said the government should be able to monitor everyone's email and other online activities if it might prevent future terrorist attacks, 52 percent disagreed.
A U.S. data gathering program, code-named PRISM, reportedly allowed intelligence agencies to access the servers of service providers such as Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB), Apple (AAPL), and others.
Citing a top-secret document, the Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency and the FBI have been accessing the servers to extract audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs
However, the Obama administration has asserted that the program cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen and that extensive procedures are used to minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons.
The Pew Research/Washington Post poll found that younger Americans are more likely to prioritize protecting personal privacy over terrorism investigations than older age groups.
The survey of 1,004 adults was conducted June 6th through 9th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
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