That NSA Poll

7:05 pm EST May 12th, 2006 | Politics | 10 Comments

Personally, I have my doubts about the poll the Washington Post conducted simply because they somehow are extrapolating 400 or so people with a 4.5% margin of error on the very day the story came out to make a judgement.

But let’s assume the poll is dead on. So what? The Democratic party has worn itself down to the barest of minorities by watching the polls so much and trying to please everyone that they please nobody. Even Democrats I think are great have time and again chosen the path of the least resistance and that’s led nowhere. In February and March of 2003, someone who looked at the polls would have figured the “right” thing to do would be to have voted in favor of the Iraq war. Way back then those of us who were against it were out of “the mainstream”.

Three years and regretfully 2,400 body bags later the vast majority have come around to our position. Sometimes you have to do what’s right, damn the polls.

It isn’t right for Americans to have their government spy on them without an effing warrant. That is exactly the sort of America that Osama Bin Laden dreams about. Don’t make it a reality because a snap poll said otherwise.

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10 Responses to “That NSA Poll”

  1. mike3k says:
    May 12, 2006 at 9:05 pm

    The results of yesterday’s Sun-Sentinel poll were very different:

    27.0%
    I approve. Analysts use the information to search for patterns of terrorist activity, not to invade people’s privacy. (2006 responses)

    69.6%
    I disapprove. The government has no business collecting this type of information about ordinary Americans. (5166 responses)

    3.3%
    I’m not sure. (247 responses)

  2. elrod says:
    May 13, 2006 at 1:05 am

    I’ll wait a few days to see where public opinion is on this. As with most privacy issues that appear abstract, Americans tend to be quite authoritarian.

  3. AlexCorrigan says:
    May 13, 2006 at 7:05 am

    Given what we know about the Bush administration’s political proclivities, only an idiot would answer the questions as framed by the W.P. poll. The questions are framed in a way that assumes the wiretapping is strictly for investigating ‘terror suspects,’ and assumes that opposition to such investigation takes place with disregard to national security. In a sense, these are questions written by and for ignorant chickensh-ts.

    The Sun-Sentinel poll doesn’t impute motive into the wiretapping, leaving the pollee to place the wiretapping in context. Also, the Sun-Sentinel poll has a much larger sample.

  4. Frank_D says:
    May 13, 2006 at 7:05 am

    In other words, “Thank goodness for the Sun – Sentinel poll, because it matches what I believe.”
    It’s clear, if not painfully obvious that, if the respondents to that poll were roughly the same as the respondents to previous polls, they were decidedly left wing.

  5. pgg2 says:
    May 13, 2006 at 10:05 am

    Mike3k must have missed the the disclaimer attached to the Sun-Sentinel’s “log on and click” poll:

    These polls are not scientific. Poll results are not posted here if there is evidence of tampering that skewed results.

    No effort to collect a representative sample, or to weight the sample that was collected. The results are useless.

  6. bryan says:
    May 13, 2006 at 2:05 pm

    I don’t know of any unfavourable poll that wasn’t heavy on the responses of opposing people. Osama does not want a society like this, he opposes the police state that is Saudi Arabia. Oh, no, what they have there and what you are reffering to is Osama lite and Osama Extra lite. That said, you freedoms are being eroded, with very little to show as a benefit, and plenty to show that it is being abused.

  7. Frank_D says:
    May 13, 2006 at 4:05 pm

    And plenty to show that it is being abused.
    Plenty?
    One example would suffice.

  8. Frank_D says:
    May 13, 2006 at 10:05 pm

    Wiretap, Shmiretap!

  9. bryan says:
    May 14, 2006 at 8:05 pm

    How about the non-allowance of Yusef Islam into the US. A man who has, since being Cat Stevens, only spoke for peace. Of course, you may think that this is minor, Frank. I say, why is the US Government afraid to let someone in who may disrupt the image of muslims as terrorists?

  10. midderpidge says:
    May 16, 2006 at 1:05 pm

    I seem to recall Yusef Islam approving the calls for the death of Salmon Rushdie at some point.