Fifty-nine percent (59%) of voters believe that allowing the government to intercept phone calls from terrorist suspects makes America safer. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 26% disagree while 15% are not sure.

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Republicans believe that allowing the government to intercept such calls makes the nation safer. Forty-eight percent (48%) of Democrats agree along with 53% of those not affiliated voters.

However, only 34% of all voters are aware that Congress recently approved legislation expanding the government’s ability to intercept phone calls and other communications without warrants. Thirty percent (30%) believe that Congress rejected the legislation while 36% are not sure.

Overall, 34% of American adults say that our legal system worries too much about individual rights at the expense of national security. A slightly smaller number of adults (27%) say there is too much concern for national security at the expense of individual liberties. Twenty-nine percent (29%) say that the current balance is about right. Those results are little changed from last fall.

Republicans, by a 52% to 12% margin, believe that the legal system is too concerned about protecting individual liberties. Democrats, by a 39% to 19% margin, take the opposite view and believe the legal system shows too much concern for national security at the expense of individual liberties. Those not affiliated with either major party are fairly evenly divided.

These results come at a time when Americans have grown less confident that the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror. Forty-eight percent (48%) of American voters trust Democrats more than President Bush when it comes to questions about the balance between national security and individual liberty. Forty-one percent (41%) trust the President more. Among those not affiliated with either major party, the Democrats have an even larger advantage, 48% to 33%.

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