First Amendment Support Returning to Pre-9/11 Levels, According to Study

What a difference a year makes. Last year, in the annual "State of the First Amendment" survey, which is conducted by the First Amendment Center in collaboration with American Journalism Review, 41 percent of Americans surveyed strongly agreed that the First Amendment went too far in the rights it guarantees. This year, that number fell to 19 percent.

The change indicates that Americans' support for their First Amendment freedoms, which was shaken by the events of 9/11, appears to be returning to pre-9/11 levels, according to Ken Paulson, executive director of the First Amendment Center. "Two years after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., our nation appears to have caught its breath -- and regained some perspective," he said. "A sense that freedom was an obstacle in the war on terrorism was reflected last year in our annual survey."

Other key survey findings:

• 60 percent of the 1,000 people surveyed indicated overall support for First Amendment freedoms.
  

• 67 percent of those surveyed did not believe that, as part of the war on terrorism, law enforcement agencies should be allowed to monitor what books or other materials patrons check out of libraries.
  

• Almost eight in 10 respondents said owners exert substantial influence over news organizations' newsgathering and reporting decisions.
  

• 52 percent said media ownership by fewer corporations has meant a decreased number of viewpoints available to the public, while 53 percent said the quality of information also has suffered.
  

• 48 percent said they believe Americans have too little access to information about the federal government's efforts to combat terrorism, up from 40 percent last year.
  

The survey appears in the August 1 issue of AJR, and the Discover Times Channel will air multiple 60-second commentaries that discuss the survey results.

The First Amendment Center commissioned the Center for Survey Research & Analysis at the University of Connecticut to conduct the State of the First Amendment survey. The national survey was conducted by telephone between June 3 and June 15, 2003, and the sampling error is plus-or-minus three percent. Copies of all of the annual State of the First Amendment surveys, along with commentaries by Paulson and an annual analysis by the University of Connecticut, are available at www.firstamendmentcenter.org.