Poll: Two-thirds of Americans say the war on terror shouldn't trump civil liberties

(Image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

published 10 June 2015

A new Gallup poll finds that 65 percent of Americans say the government should not violate civil liberties in its fight against terrorism, while 30 percent are willing to give the war on terror free rein. These ratios are fairly consistent with the last decade's worth of polling on this subject, and significantly more pro-civil liberties than public opinion was in the years immediately following 9/11:

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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