A better poll question on no-warrant wiretaps

I previously slammed this awful Rasmussen poll question about President Bush's no-warrant wiretap program:

Should the National Security Agency be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States?

As I wrote, the obvious answer is yes, but the question is whether the NSA should have to obtain a warrant before doing so. The question fails to mention the warrant issue, and therefore the widely touted figure of 64 percent approval for Bush's policy is meaningless.

Via Atrios and Think Progress, here is a much better question from a new Associated Press poll (PDF), which yields very different results:

Should the Bush administration be required to get a warrant from a judge before monitoring phone and internet communications between American citizens in the United States and suspected terrorists, or should the government be allowed to monitor such communications without a warrant?

Should be required to get a warrant.......................................... 56
Should be allowed to monitor without a warrant............................. 42
Not sure......................................... 2

Will the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Pat Buchanan and the many others who touted the Rasmussen poll retract or modify their previous comments? Not likely.

Comments

[Jake Savage]

The second poll question is much better at highlighting the warrant issue. However, it still has a few problems:

First, it neglects to mention that the suspected terrorists are outside the United States, a fact which might have an impact on public opinion.

Second, it asks whether warrants should be obtained "before" monitoring communications. It is my understanding that it is possible to obtain warrants after the fact in select cases where speed is necessary. Asking the question this way may tend to skew the results toward "No."

Finally, it also specifies "American citizens," though, to the best of my knowledge, the NSA program could have targeted citizens or non-citizens. Limiting the question to citizens (instead of "people," as in the first question) unnecessarily narrows the scope of the question and could possibly skew the results toward "Yes."

Adding "without obtaining a warrant from a judge" to the first question would probably give us a more accurate picture of public opinion on this issue.