What Do You Think About Sacrificing Rights to Fight Terrorism

The terror attacks on America in 2001 on Sept. 11th left a mark on Americans. As the very first responders climbed through the rubble in New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania, the country embarked on a “War on Terror.”

With that war has come many years of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, indefinite detention of terror suspects without charges or trial, enhanced interrogation techniques, extraordinary rendition and the passage of the USA Patriot Act.

Here we are, ten years later, and Americans are still wondering if it was wise to give up some privacy and freedoms in order to fight terrorism.

According to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 54 percent of Americans said that if given a choice between preserving their rights and freedoms and protecting people from terrorists, they’d come down on the side of civil liberties. Some said the reason for feeling that way is because giving up freedoms to the government might lead to a slippery slope. Others are against warrantless surveillance efforts because they believe that terrorists would succeed anyway.

On the other side, 47 percent of respondents support allowing the government to read emails sent between people outside the US without a warrant. Almost half approved of the U.S. eavesdropping on phone calls made between people in foreign countries.

The AP-NORC poll was conducted between July 28 and Aug. 15. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.