Although 84 percent of Americans are concerned about a future terrorist attack on the United States, most of them are unwilling to surrender civil liberties in exchange for more security, an MSU study released Monday said.
The nationwide survey, which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and conducted by two MSU professors of political science, asked people about issues such as racial profiling, warrantless searches of suspected terrorists and the possibility of a national ID card.
The telephone survey, which asked nine questions, was conducted between November and January for 1,448 people.
Professor Darren Davis, one of the study’s researchers, said his interest in political tolerance and support for democracy led him to conduct the study after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“Citizens are not willing to sacrifice many of their personal freedoms to combat terrorism, but the most interesting thing is that it tends to break down when you ask about specific policies,” he said.
Davis said about 45 percent of the people surveyed said they would be willing to give up some civil liberties, but wouldn’t support racial profiling.
“If a person is willing to give up certain rights, they are almost empowering the government,” he said. “Trust in local law enforcement also plays an extremely important role.”
General management junior Bradley Smith said he feels safe and thinks civil liberties should be maintained.
“I don’t feel it’s something that happens every day,” he said. “We can’t be concerned to the point where we are paranoid about it all the time.”
Karen Clark, senior project manager of the study at MSU’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, said each interview lasted about 25 minutes. She said the institute will conduct the same study again in the fall.
“It will be another round of pretty much the same questions,” she said. “I wasn’t surprised at any of the findings. They made sense to me when we pulled up the results.”
Henry Silverman, president of the Lansing-area branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he thinks the study shows Americans believe there isn’t a relationship between being secure and having civil liberties.
“We can have things like airport security without destroying our civil liberties,” he said.
Silverman said he doesn’t support the idea of a national ID card - an idea 54 percent of the people surveyed supported.
“This is similar to what European countries and the Nazis had,” he said. “Where are your papers? Where is your national ID card? It sounds harmless enough, but the government has a tremendous amount of information about each citizen, and I worry more and more about what they can do with that.”
