[IP] Scheiber - Polling Too Fairly?
Begin forwarded message:
From: David Bolduc <bolduc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: May 12, 2006 1:32:56 PM EDT
To: johnmacsgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Scheiber - Polling Too Fairly?
Useful formatting and pointers in original.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=17176
THE WASHINGTON POST'S OVERLY FAIR POLL QUESTION:
At first glance, I'm a little surprised by the results of this snap
Washington Post poll on the recently disclosed NSA phone-record-
monitoring program. Sixty-three percent of respondents deemed the
program acceptable, only 35 percent didn't. My expectation would have
been that, in light of the NSA eavesdropping revelations from a few
months ago, just throwing the words "NSA" and "phone" together in the
same sentence would have gotten a good 45 percent of the country
riled up.
When I actually look at the poll question, though, the result makes a
little more sense. Here's how the Post put the question to people:
It's been reported that the National Security Agency has been
collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans.
It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible
terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the
conversations. Would you consider this an acceptable or unacceptable
way for the federal government to investigate terrorism? Do you feel
that way strongly or somewhat?
Now, that's unquestionably a fair way to characterize the program.
But that's precisely why I wouldn't put too much stock in the
results. The average voter isn't going to have the program patiently
explained to them by some pollster. When they decide which party to
vote for, they may well be unaware that the NSA only analyzes
patterns of calls without listening to the conversations. All that
many voters will know is that the NSA is up to some slightly sketchy
stuff; they'll probably have a vague sense that it was also up to
some sketchy stuff a few months earlier. Of course, that doesn't mean
voters will be upset about it. Just that, somewhat paradoxically, the
better test of whether they're upset isn't a poll laying out the
program with all sorts of conditions and qualifications. It's a poll
that comes closer to testing the glib description of the program
they're likely to hear from Democrats (another Bush administration
intrusion on your privacy) and Republicans (another Bush
administration attempt to capture terrorists).* My hunch is this poll
would produce results a lot closer to 50-50.
--Noam Scheiber
*I think a reasonably revealing poll question would be something
like: We've learned that the NSA monitors the phone records of
ordinary Americans in order to help hunt down terrorists. Do you
support that program?
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