Majority of Americans Disapprove of Government Phone Snooping

Katie Pavlich | June 10, 2013 4:15 PM

According to a new Rasmussen Report, the majority of Americans disapprove of the federal government's harvesting of phone records belonging to hundreds of millions of Americans.

Most voters oppose the U.S. government’s secret collection of the phone records of millions of Americans and think the feds are spying too much on U.S. citizens these days. Just 26% of Likely U.S. Voters favor the government’s secret collecting of these phone records for national security purposes regardless of whether there is any suspicion of wrongdoing. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 59% are opposed to the practice. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

Meanwhile, the public trust of the government continues to fall along with President Obama's approval rating.

In an NBC/WSJ poll released Wednesday, 58% of voters said the recent scandals raised doubts about the Administration's honesty and integrity. 45% said the scandals raised "major doubts." 68% of voters said President Obama was in some part responsible for the scandals. On whether Obama is personally "honest and straightforward," voters split 42-40.

In a Bloomberg poll released this week, almost a majority of voters, 47%, said Obama was not telling the complete truth about his knowledge of the IRS scandal. 53% of Independents said Obama wasn't being truthful about the scandal.

Last week, Quinnipiac released a poll showing a precipitous erosion in views of Obama's honesty. A mere plurality, 49-47, agreed that Obama personally was "honest and trustworthy." Two years ago, 63% of voters believed Obama to be honest.