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Poll finds support eroding for press, religious freedoms
AP, Aug. 30, 2002
http://www.tennessean.com/
Support for the First Amendment has eroded significantly since Sept. 11, and nearly half of Americans think the news media are too aggressive in seeking information on the war on terrorism, an annual survey released yesterday shows.
The nationwide telephone poll of 1,000 people found 49% think the First Amendment goes too far in guaranteeing press and religious rights. That’s a jump of 10 percentage points since 2001 and more than double 2000′s 22%.
”Many Americans view these fundamental freedoms as possible obstacles in the war on terrorism,” said Ken Paulson, executive director of the Arlington, Va.-based First Amendment Center, which commissioned the survey.
The center, which also has offices in Nashville, asked the University of Connecticut’s Center for Survey Research and Analysis to question people on their First Amendment views. The random survey occurred between June 12 and July 5 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The researchers said they designed this year’s survey in part to test the ”public’s willingness to tolerate restrictions on the First Amendment liberties during what they perceive to be wartime.”
They found that 48% of respondents agreed that government should have the freedom to monitor religious groups in the interest of national security — even if that means infringing upon the religious freedom of the group’s members. Forty-two percent said the government should have more power to monitor Muslims in particular.
”Many citizens treat the current state of affairs as the equivalent of a full-scale war against an enemy whose reach extends within our nation’s borders,” the researchers wrote in their survey report. ”Throughout the 20th century, states of war often have been accompanied by restrictions to First Amendment rights.”
The survey also found a significant dip in the number of people who believe newspapers should freely criticize the U.S. military about its strategy and performance. Fifty-seven percent were supportive this year, compared with 69% in 2001.
Seven in 10 respondents agreed that newspapers should publish freely, compared with three in four in 2001. Those less likely to support newspaper rights included people without a college education, Republicans and fundamentalists and evangelicals, the survey found.
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