Survey finds acceptance of security steps

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Most Americans broadly endorse steps taken by the Bush administration to investigate and prosecute suspected terrorists and express little concern that these measures violate the rights of U.S. citizens or others caught up in the ongoing probes, according to a survey by The Washington Post and ABC News.

Six in 10 agree with President Bush that suspected terrorists should be tried in special military tribunals and not in U.S. criminal courts, a proposal that has come under increasing fire from civil libertarians as well as from some influential Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Seven in 10 Americans believe the government is doing enough to protect the civil rights of suspected terrorists. An equally large majority believes the government is sufficiently guarding the rights of Arab Americans and American Muslims and noncitizens from Arab and Muslim countries.

The Bush administration is "flying in the face of a lot of influential people, including senior members of the House and Senate from their own party," said Leslie Gelb, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Instead, they’re relying on public opinion."

Nearly three out of four of those surveyed also agree that it should be legal for the federal government to wiretap conversations between suspected terrorists and their attorneys. An even larger majority — 79 percent — supports plans by federal prosecutors to interview about 5,000 young men here on temporary visas from the Middle East. And nearly nine in 10 believe the United States is justified in detaining about 600 foreign nationals for violating immigration laws.

"If we keep going the way we’re going with civil liberties, other countries are going to see us as a patsy," said Marta Salcedo, a dental office manager in Manhattan. "You have to change with the times."

Salcedo said she had little regard for the rights of suspects held in connection with the attacks. "They should torture them," she said. "Sometimes you have to do things that are uncivilized."

The apparent willingness of many Americans to place security above civil rights protections comes as no surprise to experts on public opinion.

"In periods of high stress and threat, support for civil liberties goes down," said George Marcus, a political scientist at Williams College. "Most Americans don’t think of rights as unqualified or universal. There are two codicils: rights are only for us American citizens; and two, rights assume that people are going to use them wisely or responsibly."

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