New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping
By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.
The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:
"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
43% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.
"The American people are not buying Bush's outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Americans believe terrorism can be fought without turning our own government into Big Brother," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik.
Recently White House spokesman Scott McClellan cited a Rasmussen poll that found 64% believe the NSA "should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects." Of course, that is exactly what Congress authorized when it created the FISA courts to issue special expedited secret warrants for terrorism suspects. But Bush defied the FISA law and authorized warrantless wiretaps of Americans, which has outraged Americans to the point that a majority believe Congress should consider Bush's impeachment.
"Bush admits he ordered illegal warantless wiretapping, but says it began in response to 9/11 and was limited to a small number of calls to or from Al Qaeda," Fertik said. "But recent reports suggest wiretapping affected a much larger number of Americans, and a report in Friday's Truthout says the wiretapping began before 9/11."
"The upcoming Senate hearings on White House wiretapping could be as dramatic as the Watergate hearings in 1973. A majority of Americans have already decided Bush committed an impeachable offense, yet we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in the Corporate Media. If Bush ordered warrantless wiretapping long before the terrorist attack on 9/11, then Americans will realize that George Bush came into office determined to shred the Constitution and take away our rights," Fertik said.
Either way, congress will never even consider it unless there is a major majority swing in 10 months.
Impeachment would do the office of the presidency some good. Presidents are starting to get cocky during their second term because they know they aren't up for election again. If we impeach a couple more of them they will start behaving a little more responsible during the second term. Though, this president was actually reckless during the first term and he got elected again. So what can you do?
I will also point out that since the majority of Americans want congress to do something about this, and it's clear that nothing that holds any credibility will be done while we have a Republican majority, it's starting to look better every day for the Democrats.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans decided to hold hearings as soon as possible while they still have the majority so that the issue would loose steam during his last two years in office. That would be just like them to pull something like that.
I supported impeaching him, even before the leak of the eavesdropping. Bush is more concerned about the leak, than the crime. Without a crime, there could be no leak.
For the life of me, I can't understand how this man was given an election twice. At least we can tell his supporters, I told you so.
Posts: 6638 | Location: Land of Lincoln, USA | Registered: 07-04-02
Well, how do you account for the poll this morning,that 56% of Americans agree with the wiretapping for National security reasons. Seems we have strange happenings here.
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
The wording of questions in the poll would be important, Scotty. Do the 56% approve of wiretaps with judicial oversight - as Bush had promised, but not held to?
It's not true, by the way, that Clinton's lies killed no one. His "wag-the-dog" bombing of the al-Shifa plant in Sudan did cause some deaths, I think. Like Bush's invasion of Iraq, it was based on evidence so flimsy, and so falsely claimed to be conclusive, that it amounts to a lie.
Was Clinton's bombing of civilians in Serbia 'to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo and, if necessary, to seriously damage the Serbian military’s capacity to harm the people of Kosovo.' a lie, or a horrendous error of judgement?
The radical right keeps conducting polls on this topic while ignoring the word "Warrant". Warrant is the key word in this topic. Of course, 100% of Americans should be in favor of wire taping suspected terrorists phone lines with a warrant.
'Many adults in the United States believe the federal government should not autonomously authorize the interception of international communications, according to a poll by Ipsos-Public Affairs released by the Associated Press. 56 per cent of respondents think the Bush administration should be required to get a warrant from a judge before monitoring phone and internet communications between American citizens and suspected terrorists.' www.angus-reid.com
It takes a hefty amount of spin to get that to suggest 'that 56% of Americans agree with the wiretapping for National security reasons' in the sense that they think Bush did the right thing here.
LOL guys. Look at the polling question. It isn't about Bush* - it is a hypothetical question which, I think, should garner a lot of "yes" votes on first impression alone.
*but it could be!
Posts: 7742 | Location: in the backwoods of North Carolina | Registered: 06-07-02
AnswerPool.com 
