Most Americans Believe It Is Acceptable to Monitor Others, Except U.S. Citizens % ofus adults who say it is acceptable or unacceptable communications from governmentto
At the same time, the public generally believes it is acceptable for the government to monitor many others, including foreign citizens, foreign leaders, and American leaders.
Yet, 57% say it is unacceptable for the government to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens. At the same time, majorities support monitoring of those particular individuals who use words like “explosives” and “automatic weapons” in their search engine queries (65% say that) and those who visit anti-American websites (67% say that).
Most Americans Believe It Is Acceptable  | to Monitor Others, Except U.S. Citizens  | % ofus adults who say it is acceptable or unacceptable  | for communications ofus the American governmentto say acceptable monitor  | communications from governmentto  | Acceptable Unacceptable  | American citizens  | 40  | 57  | Citizens ofother countries  | 54  | 44  | American leaders  | 60  | 38  | Lead ers of other countries  | 60  | 37  | Terrorism suspe cts  | 82  | 15  | Source: Survey of475 adults on Gik panel November 26, 2014  | January3 2015.  | PEW RESEARCH CENTER 