Even After Boston Bombing, Americans Refuse to Surrender More Civil Liberties
The Tsarnaev brothers may have succeeded in killing three, wounding 200, and ruining this year's Boston Marathon (as well as some guy's boat), but according to a poll released yesterday they failed to scare a majority of Americans into surrendering their civil liberties in exchange for more security.
"When given a choice, 61 percent of Americans say they are more concerned about the government enacting new anti-terrorism policies that restrict civil liberties, compared to 31 percent who say they are more concerned about the government failing to enact strong new anti-terrorism policies," writes TIME's Zeke Miller about a poll the magazine released yesterday afternoon.
While you might think Americans become more amenable to surrendering their civil liberties with each major terrorist attack, TIME's poll found otherwise. Only 23 percent of Americans said they were not willing to give up their civil liberties After the 1996 Olympics bombing; that number stands at 49 percent after the Boston bombing.
You can read the full poll results below. (And definitely revisit Matt Welch's piece on governance-as-crisis-response.)
