Scheiber - Polling Too Fairly?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: David Bolduc <bolduc () austin rr com>
Date: May 12, 2006 1:32:56 PM EDT
To: johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com, Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
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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