Yesterday, Pew released the results of a new poll on counter-terrorism, national security, and civil liberties.
The poll revealed sharp divides between Democrats and Republicans as well as between conservative/moderate Democrats and liberal Democrats.
Take, for instance, the question of whether one's bigger concern was that the government's anti-terrorism policies have restricted civil liberties at home too much or have not gone far enough to protect the US.
Liberal Democrats were the only partisan/ideological group to believe that protecting civil liberties was the bigger concern. Conservative/moderate Democrats were not only to the right of liberal Democrats, but also to the right of Independents and conservative Republicans on this issue. (Moderate/liberal Republicans were the only group to their right.)
The reference poll in July 2013 was taken back when the NSA revelations from Edward Snowden were still prominently in the news. After that, there was a brief surge in support for civil liberties among Republicans in polling. That, as this recent poll now shows, has faded.
One sees a partisan/ideological divides as well on the issue of whether people are worried about a terrorist attack occurring.
Majorities of millennials and liberal Democrats were not worried. Conservative Republicans were the most worried.
The same divide shows up on the issue of torture.
Liberal Democrats were the only partisan/ideological group to have a majority saying that torturing a suspected terrorist to gain information was never justified. (What gives with the 6% of liberal Democrats who say it is often justified?) Liberal Democrats here differ sharply with conservative/moderate Democrats as well as with Independents and Republicans of all stripes. Conservative Republicans were the most likely to see torture as justified.
Thoughts on torture also vary significantly among demographic groups.
The strongest opposition to torture comes from Hispanics (38% never justified) and postgraduates (37% never justified). Given the prevalence of torture by authoritarian US-backed regimes in recent Latin American history, the opposition to torture among Hispanics makes sense.
There are issues with the phrasing of this question, however. Asking whether torture is "often," "sometimes," "rarely," or "never" justified encourages people to treat something like the "ticking-time bomb" scenario as anything but a fiction. It encourages people to actively think of possible, but perhaps very unlikely, scenarios that would make them break with moral commons sense. But the divides reflected in the response are still revealing.