You can stick that poll where the sun don't shine

Despite the fact that by law the US is not a direct democracy — meaning no all-binding plebiscites are administered by DC & 51% of the population cannot vote to piss in the other 49%’s morning coffee — statists frequently cite survey results to back up their approval of unlimited government.  Their arguement goes along the lines of “most people don’t care” or “the public generally approves”, as if the only thing that determines what is just and what isn’t is the whim of a plurality.

For example, take the latest violation by the NSA. A joint Washington Post/ABC News poll came to the following conclusion:

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.

The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it. (emphasis mine)

Let’s assume hypothetically that this matters for a moment. It’s reasonable to assume that, if the public is to decide such things by what amounts to a plebiscite, there is an expectation that people be properly informed. No point in making a decision if you don’t know what you’re talking about, right?

Conveniently for us, the actual questions on the poll are provided. Here’s the question that got 63% acceptance for the program:

45. 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?

This question couldn’t have been more slanted if it were written by Sean Hannity. Let’s rewrite it, shall we? Additions in bold, prejudicial or vague parts stricken:

45. It’s been reported that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. They have been doing this without a warrant, which is required by law for any such surveillance involving american citizens. It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the conversations. The rationale provided so far for not obtaining a warrant, as told to a telecommunications company that refused to cooperate in the warrantless phone record mining, has been that the FISA Court would not grant a court order due to the scope of the search. Would you consider this an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism? Does the necessity of this phone record mining program to investigating terrorism outweigh the warrant requirement? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?

Notice in the part stricken out it asks what is partially a strategic question, rather than one solely asking opinion on the legality of the program and/or the relevance thereof. Contrary to the image they are giving, it is entirely possible for someone to have as their answer “the program itself is understandable, but the NSA should not break the law to operate it”. Instead, they completely omit the issue of doing this without the check of having to obtain a court order, which is the entire reason this is a big deal at all.

I’m not surprised that they didn’t consider the legal issues themselves though. After all, there’ve been surveys done showing that if the public were to vote on the Bill of Rights today they would reject it…

***Updated 051306 @ 3:03 PM EST***
It’s been brought to my attention that the author of this poll is a GOP hack. FireDogLake caught him responding to questions of why a poll asking about support for Bush’s impeachment hadn’t been done by WaPo with snark about it not being “a topic of considered discussion”, seemingly failing to realize that people asking him about it shows it is being discussed.