Government Surveillance: A Question Wording Experiment
Notice how “court approval” has such a large impact. We trust our time tested checks and balances. Remove even some of that and we get cranky, and rightly so.
Government Surveillance: A Question Wording Experiment
Court Approval a Big Factor in Public Support
Overview
In the wake of leaked information about the government’s telephone and digital surveillance programs last month, public opinion surveys reported a wide range of reactions. For example, a Pew Research Center/Washington Post survey conducted immediately after the revelations found broad support for the program, while a Gallup survey conducted just days later found more disapproval than approval. These, along with a number of other surveys during that period, all made an effort to describe the program as accurately and neutrally as possible, yet different question wording clearly produced different responses.
Four Experimental Treatments of Government SurveillanceTo better understand how the manner in which the government’s surveillance program is described affects public evaluations, the Pew Research Center conducted a question wording experiment in a national telephone survey fielded between July 11 and 21, 2013 among 2,002 adults. The survey respondents were asked whether they would favor or oppose a government data collection program, but the wording of four elements of the program were described differently to different groups of respondents. These are: whether metadata or content is being collected; whether phone calls or emails are being monitored; whether the program has court approval; and whether the program is part of anti-terrorism efforts.
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