Voters Question U.S. Protection of Secrets Following WikiLeaks’ Disclosure
Voters are strongly concerned about the impact of the latest dump of sensitive and secret U.S. data on the Internet by the WikiLeaks organization and think the U.S. government needs to do a better job protecting that kind of information.
Just 29% of Likely U.S. Voters think, generally speaking, that the American government does a good job of protecting its secrets. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 46% disagree while another 25% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Seventy-nine percent (79%) are at least somewhat concerned that the WikiLeaks release of classified documents will harm national security, with 47% who are Very Concerned. Only 18% are not very or not at all concerned about the national security implications of the public airing of the U.S. secrets.
Two-out-of-three voters (67%) said in late July following WikiLeaks’ release of secret U.S. information related to the war in Afghanistan that the disclosure hurt national security.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted November 29-30, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Which party's voters are most critical of how the government protects its secrets? Is this an issue that the Political Class and Mainstream voters see eye-to-eye on? Become a Platinum member and find out.
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