[ziggy_dlo]

A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Sounds like it is controversial to the Washington Post newsroom, not to the public.

[LongsforReagan]

The only thing I am disappointed about it- if the NSA is in effect going to collect and store my phone bill, why wont they pay it too?

:)

[senorjosef]

Well all these programs kinda piss me off. Just kick the damm illegals out of the country, reform immigration, don't grant visas to people from terrorist states, put up two walls, get rid of this idea of political correctness which allowed the 9/11 attacks to proceed...THEN THERE WOULD BE NO NEED TO SCREW WITH THE CONSTITUTION AND OUR RIGHTS!

[Always Right]

Sounds like it is controversial to the Washington Post newsroom, not to the public.

Of course the Washington Post Newsroom is made up entirely of the 24% of the people who strongly objected to it. It is all part of their 'diversity'....

[golfisnr1]

THE ONLY CONTROVERSY (WITH THE PRESS) IS THAT IT IS A BUSH PROGRAM. IF IT IS A BUSH PROGRAM IT IS BAD.

[jigsaw]

In other news, 24% of Americans believe that Phone Books should be made illegal due to privacy concerns.   (/sarc)

[frogjerk]

Phone records are routinely used in criminal cases everyday.

If the NSA has a phone number of a possible terrorist I would expect them to cross-reference numbers to see who they are calling and why.

[bobsunshine]

See this thread, same poll

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1631027/posts

[SUSSA]

Polls show most Americans are not worried about President Clinton's new head of the NSA.

[tomnbeverly]

It's all Bush's fault if only he solved World Hunger and made all the leaders of all the country's come together and sing kumbaya none of this would be happening right now... whoa is us, whoa is us...

[Jumping in red OK]

66% of Americans are idiots. Conservative=freedom=FREE Republic. We're at WAR: Why can't the White House spy on the ENEMY, instead of its own citizens?
It's pathetic. I know I don't post as much as most other people here, but IMHO not only is this thing going to bite the president, eventually, it's going to take down the party if we don't distance ourselves from it. It is NOT Republican. It is NOT American. It HASN'T been done before, ever, like this. And there sure as hell isn't anything Conservative about it. It's good old Stalinist, Maoist, COMMUNIST abuse of power. Let's remember OUR values, even when the White House can't.
I need a Republican horse to get behind in 08 who isn't afraid to say this.

[rhombus]

Yeah, I try not to believe too many polls but I think this one is probably pretty accurate. Still, it won't keep the usual suspects from just bluring the whole thing into yet another Big Brother 1984 talking point. The funny thing is that people who are upset about this have absolutely no problem with the fact that every year we have to report to the Government every penny we earn and every asset we have...so the Gov't can make sure things are "fair" (that 4-letter word again).

[Realism]

On-line since 1999, it didn't stop 911 and how many actual "terrorists" have been caught by spying on Americans?

[BallyBill]

PLEASE: Poll the American people on how they feel about releasing "Classified Programs" to the media!

[SR 50]

The terrorist believe that there is no way that they can be located out of 10 million phone records.

Very simply put, and what is not reported, is that of the 10 million phone records the established matrix filters out about 9 million phone records that do not meet the criteria. Of the remaining 1 million phone records another 900,000 records are eliminated as not meeting the second tier matrix filter. The final 100,000 records that meet some, but not all criteria of interest, are evaluated for a final matrix test, eliminating another 75,000 phone records. This leaves about 25,000 phone records to concentrate on. If you are in the 25,000 of the 10 million phone records being scanned, you may have a problem. But for the rest of us I think we are pretty safe from every hearing from the US Government about our phone calls.

[GingisK]

...63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way...

Hmmm. About the same number that voted for Clinton.

The numbers of people behind an issue don't make it right. Those are the people who have traded thier freedom for pretense of security.

[sinkspur]

Have you calmed down enough to realize that there is no threat to liberty by collecting a bunch of phone numbers?

[Redbob]

Yeah, how "controversial" can it be if 2/3 of Americans support it?

Who's against it, besides Nancy Pelosi and CAIR?

[RayChuang88]

Another drive-by media action gone wrong again.

[macamadamia]

Half--51 percent--approved of the way President Bush was handling privacy matters.


That's a strange and unusually high number for a president who is only getting 31% job approval.

[veronica]

Ha ha ha...the Dems just lost a big talking point.