While the recent issues of the United States government—particularly the National Security Agency (News - Alert)—getting deeply involved with the personal records of citizens has more than a few people rubbed the wrong way, a new report has emerged that suggests that a majority—though not a very large majority—of citizens are okay with the idea of government fishing expeditions into records if it protects Americans from terrorist attacks.

The report, a product of the Pew (News - Alert) Research Center and the Washington Post, suggests that a slight majority of Americans—56 percent—believe that tracking the telephone records of American citizens is a viable response to terrorism. However, 41 percent believe it is utterly unacceptable, with 2 percent unsure about the whole thing. There are some issues with rounding here to explain why only 99 percent of respondents are included in the poll, which was undertaken among 1,004 adults.

Perhaps more interesting than this is that, while phone calls seem to be fair game for a majority of Americans, that majority boils off when the issue of e-mail comes up. The respondents to the question “Should the government be able to monitor everyone's e-mail to prevent possible terrorism?” turned in 45-percent yes votes, 52-percent no votes, and 3 percent didn't know. These numbers are largely comparable to the same numbers produced in July 2002 when the same question was asked, with one clear difference. While yes votes still came in at 45 percent, only 47 percent at the time said no outright, while 8 percent called it at “don't know.” Basically, “don't know” became “plain no” in fairly large proportions.

Additionally, there are some key distinctions among age groups. At least 60 percent of older age groups believe privacy is less important than finding terrorists, the younger groups are more divided, with 51 percent saying investigating terrorism is more important and 45 percent saying privacy is more important. Partisan differences—among Democrats, Republicans, and independents—are likewise slim, with 69 percent of Democrats weighing in on the “hunting terrorists” side, 62 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents backing terrorist hunting measures.

But one thing is clear: no matter where the interest falls on this one, it's being watched closely and by a large number of Americans. One in four, on average, say they are following the news “very closely,” while almost another quarter—21 percent—are following it “fairly closely.”

The issue of government monitoring of communications is likely to be a hot-button issue for some time to come. With nearly half the country watching it either very or fairly closely, it's clear that it's going to factor into quite a few decisions both now and in the immediate future. Given that we're getting close to another election year—2014 will see several elections, including not only all of the House of Representatives but fully one in every three Senate seats, not to mention several state and local elections—this may well be an opportunity that some challengers won't be able to take lightly. Still, it's clear that this is a big issue, and whether hay or change is made here only remains to be seen.