AUSTIN -- Three-fourths of Texans are willing to sacrifice some of their civil liberties in an effort to prevent the type of terrorism that struck New York and the Pentagon, a new survey indicates.
According to the Scripps Howard Texas Poll, 52 percent of Texans are concerned about new restrictions being imposed on their freedoms as the government reacts to the Sept. 11 attacks.
But 74 percent of the poll's respondents said they would be willing to give up some of their liberties to fight terrorism.
The telephone survey of 500 Texas adults was conducted Sept. 20-25, as the Bush administration was pressing Congress for legislation to expand the authority of law enforcement officials against suspected terrorists.
Action on the proposals has been delayed by lawmakers who want to ensure the changes don't go too far in limiting civil liberties.
Texans' attitudes on limiting their freedoms are similar to those expressed nationally. Seventy-nine percent of respondents to a New York Times/CBS News Poll published earlier this week agreed that Americans will have to give up some of their personal freedoms to make the country safe from terrorist attacks.
In addition to the administration's push for expanded use of wiretaps and other steps against suspected terrorists, there also has been public discussion about imposing unprecedented restrictions on ordinary citizens, such as the issuance of electronic identification cards and government monitoring of phone calls and e-mail.
Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said it was "dangerous" for Americans to be so willing to accept new governmental restrictions on their lives.
"This is exactly what happens every time there is a crisis. Our political leadership tries to gain more leverage, in a sense, over the Bill of Rights," he said.
Harrington said the talk of restricting personal freedoms was particularly ominous since the Bush administration has been unable to say that any of the expanded investigatory authority it is seeking would have prevented the recent attacks.
"There is absolutely no guarantee that these safeguards would have avoided the Sept. 11 occurrence," Attorney General John Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee this week. "We do know that without them, the occurrence took place."
Will Harrell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said he also was concerned about the polls. But he said the findings were "understandable" because America is suffering through a time of crisis and fear.
"It's a bump, but a temporary bump, and I don't think that's an opinion shared by most elected officials," he said.
An overwhelming majority of Texans, 93 percent, are concerned about the possibility of more terrorist attacks in the United States, the Texas Poll indicates. And 57 percent are worried that they or a member of their family will become a terrorist victim.
Only 27 percent, however, said the Sept. 11 attacks had made them more fearful to attend sporting or other public events.
Sixty-two percent of the Texas Poll respondents thought U.S. intelligence agencies should have discovered plans for the terrorist attacks on the East Coast before they happened. But 86 percent said they were confident that the government can prevent further terrorist attacks in this country.
Harrington said he suspected one reason the administration was in a hurry to expand its authority was to provide "political cover" for its intelligence failures and lack of security at the airports where hijackers boarded commercial airliners for use in the attacks.
The survey by the Scripps Howard Data Center has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.