Americans trust Ashcroft more than ACLU – and they support the Patriot Act, too!

“More Americans trust Attorney General John Ashcroft than trust the ACLU to balance the sometimes competing values of national security and civil liberties,” according to a new Gallup poll.

And most Americans believe that the USA Patriot Act “is within acceptable bounds in its treatment of civil liberties,” the Gallup News Service announces.

“According to a Feb. 16-17 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, only one-quarter of Americans (26%) believe the Patriot Act goes too far in restricting people’s civil liberties in order to fight terrorism. Nearly as many (21%) think it does not go far enough, while the plurality (43%) believes it is about right. That represents a more than 2-to-1 balance of opinion against the idea that the act goes too far,” according to Gallup. “Public reaction has changed little since first measured last August.”

The Patriot Act could be an election-year women’s issue. When asked whether the law goes too far or doesn’t go far enough, more women say that the Patriot Act doesn’t go far enough in protecting the country against domestic terrorists.