* Originy By: Scott Wood
 * Originy To: All
 * Originy Re: Give up your rights
 * OriginArea: Fido=   Current Events
 * Forwarded by : Blue Wave v2.12
Broad powers supported in terrorist fight
54% in poll back rights abridgement
NEW YORK (AP) - Spying on suspicious groups, seizing their weapons,
deporting foreign suspects - these are powers most Americans say the
government should have after the Oklahoma bombing.
An Associated Press poll taken April 28 to May 2 found that 54 percent
of U>S> adults believe the government must try to stop terrorists even
if it intrudes on some peoples rights and privacy.
Twenty-one percent say treading on rights and privacy is unacceptable,
and 19 percent say it just won't work.
This trade-off of civil liberties for public security is embraced by far
more women, 64 percent, then men, 44 percent.
The poll also found that 61 percent expect this country to experience
more terrorism in the year ahead.
The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City was followed by a
rush of counter-terrorism proposals.  But amid the anxiety created by
stories of paramilitary extremists, many politicians urged caution about
tampering with constitutional rights.
Americans usually tell pollsters the government is too intrusive.  But
proposals for now anti-terrorism powers get support from large
majorities among the 1,009 Americans polled for the AP by ICR Survey
Research Group of Media, Pa., part of AUS Consultants.
Sy-five percent support the power to search for and seize weapons
from groups that might be planning terrorism, even if the groups have
not committed any crimes.
Sy-three percent favor FBI power to inflitrate and spy on potential
terrorist organizations in this country even without evidence of a
crime.
Current guidelines restrict undercover operations to cases where there
is stong evidence a crime has been committed or will be soon.
Civil Liberarians say looser restrictions on surveillance could result
in a repeat of abuses of the 1960's and '70's, when the FBI spied on and
subverted some civil rights groups and kept files on members' personal
habits.
A Clinton administration proposal with bipartisan support in Congress
would let the government quickly expel any forigner suspected of
planning terrorism, even a person who committed no crime.  That proposal
has 58 percent support in the poll.
Only 38 percent support giving government power to ban people from
speaking on radio or television if they advocate anti-government
violence.  Fifty-six percent oppose such a ban.
In contrast, an overwhelming 70 percent would give government the power
to ban information aobut bomb-making from public computer networks.
Bomb recipes have been circulating in print for years and can be posted
anonymously on may computer networks.
The poll results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3
percentage points.
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They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary saftey
deserve neither liberty nor saftey.
                                    --Benjamin Franklin
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