Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/12/AR2006121201310.html

66% Think U.S. Spies on Its Citizens
52% in Poll Back Hearings on Handling of Domestic Surveillance

Dan Eggen
Washington Post
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Two-thirds of Americans believe that the FBI and other federal agencies
are intruding on privacy rights as part of terrorism investigations, but
they remain divided over whether such tactics are justified, according
to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday.

The poll also showed that 52 percent of respondents favor congressional
hearings on how the Bush administration has handled surveillance,
detainees and other terrorism-related issues, compared with 45 percent
who are opposed. That question was posed to half of the poll's
1,005-person random sample.

Overall, the poll -- which includes questions that have been asked since
2002 and 2003 -- showed a continued skepticism about whether the
government is adequately protecting privacy rights as it conducts
terrorism-related investigations.

Compared with June 2002, for example, almost twice as many respondents
say the need to respect privacy outranks the need to investigate
terrorist threats. That shift was first evident in polling conducted in
January 2006.

That sentiment is still a minority view, however: Nearly two-thirds rank
investigating threats as more important than guarding against intrusions
on personal privacy, down from 79 percent in 2002.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who is a professor in Georgetown
University's Security Studies Program, said the poll results could spell
trouble for the FBI and other government agencies as they continue to
seek support for expanded anti-terrorism powers granted after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks.

"I don't think you can view these polling results in isolation from an
overall phenomenon, which is that people are more skeptical of the
government's conduct of the war on terrorism," Hoffman said.

Sixty-six percent of those questioned said that the FBI and other
agencies are "intruding on some Americans' privacy rights" in terrorism
investigations, up from 58 percent in September 2003. Thirty percent
think the government is not intruding on privacy.

Support for intrusive tactics has dropped even more significantly during
that time. A bare majority, 51 percent, feel the tactics are justified,
down from 63 percent three years ago.

The poll was conducted by telephone from Dec. 7 through Monday, and the
results have a three-percentage-point margin of error.

yes... the gov. probably does spy on most of us.

so let them spie there's nothing they can do to me till the get it
legalized because it'd all be inadmissable in court anyhow

damn now I'm spelling like everyone else *spy

yep. me also.

chismah don't look at the white va across the road with the tinted
windows and they saw what you posted here better sleep with one eye open
lol

The Gov. can spy on me all they want. It'd take 10 minutes for them to
fall asleep from boredom. Shit, I haven't even had a trafic ticket since
I side swiped a dump truck going over the Greater New Orleans Bridge 30
years ago.