Misuse of polling can sway opinion

Published 9:34 pm Thursday, June 20, 2013

There’s a lesson here about the value of polls — and the value of reading a little deeper to learn more. A poll is a snapshot, and knowing how a poll question is formulated is important to bringing the findings into focus.

On Monday, CNN reported that 66 percent of Americans believe it’s “right” for the government to collect data from computers used by Americans (33 percent said it was wrong).

If that number is right, then the Obama administration is on firm ground in the controversy surrounding the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance programs.

But that number isn’t right. Take a look at the question CNN posed:

“For the past few years the Obama administration has reportedly been gathering and analyzing information from major internet companies about audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails and documents involving people in other countries in an attempt to locate suspected terrorists. The government reportedly does not target internet usage by U.S. citizens and if such data is collected, it is kept under strict controls. Do you think the Obama administration was right or wrong in gathering and analyzing that internet data?”

First, that’s a pretty complicated question. And it’s prefaced by an awful lot of qualifiers that help make the eventual question seem to be a foregone conclusion. Data is gathered, the question indicates, “in an attempt to locate suspected terrorists.”

Who would be against that?

Furthermore, if any data is collected on Americans, the data is “kept under strict controls.”

That may be true — the investigations continue. But the poll treats it like a settled matter, and presents a syllogism to the respondents: If data is collected to catch bad guys, and the good guys (us) are protected, then there’s no problem, right?

In court, that’s called leading the witness.

A more candid response from Americans is found in the very same poll — in a simply worded question about how President Barack Obama has handled the issue.

“Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling government surveillance of citizens?” the poll asks. The numbers are nearly reversed; 61 percent disapprove, and only 35 percent approve.

Methodology matters. Polls have long been used to sway as well as measure public opinion.

“Push polls are phone calls that are disguised as surveys but are really meant to affect the outcome of a race by disseminating negative information (true or untrue) about a candidate,” the Washington Post explains.

But in this case, the CNN poll could well act as a push poll by disseminating positive information — the notion that our information is safe in the hands of the NSA.

But really, polls shouldn’t matter when it’s an issue of constitutional freedoms.

The U.S. Constitution was not written to be a popular agreement. It’s notoriously difficult to amend and its freedoms are rightly seen as sacrosanct. Popular opinion may shift, but rights don’t.

Our Fourth Amendment rights, which are at the heart of the NSA controversy, aren’t in question here. Neither is public opinion. The government’s actions are.