Americans Agree -- Congress Must Act

The last two weeks I have written about how Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) and the House Majority's left-wing leadership decided to go on a 12-day vacation instead of renewing legislation that allowed our Intelligence agencies to easily monitor the communications of terrorists overseas. As a result, the legislation expired, crippling our intelligence gathering efforts.

I wrote, "This abdication of responsibility by such a high-ranking member of our government has been the most amazing anti-national security action by Congress in decades." Judging by the e-mails and comments I received, many of you agreed.

It turns out we are not the only ones. Not by a long shot.

Today, American Solutions is releasing new polling data that show that by a three-to-one margin (71 to 23), Americans believe Congress should have taken action before leaving Washington to make sure the Protect America Act did not expire.

Additionally, the data show that Americans agree by a 3.5-to-one margin (74 to 21) that companies that assist the United States government in tracking down terrorists should be protected from lawsuits related to that assistance. This is one of the core issues at stake in the debate over the Protect America Act, as Pelosi and the left-wing House Majority's leadership have chosen to side with the trial lawyers over our safety.

As American Solutions has done with all its data, the full results, including crosstabs, have been released to all Americans, for free, online at AmericanSolutions.com.

Even When It's Down to Red vs. Blue, National Security Wins

The polling data also show something revealing. When we asked Americans what they thought of the issue at hand with no mention of political party identification, by three to one, they supported renewing the Protect America Act.

However, when the party affiliation for each position was included, the number shrank to a 52-to-37 margin in favor of protecting from lawsuits companies that assist the government.

This tells us two things:

First, it shows just how damaged the Republican brand really is, if the very mention of the Republican Party can take a 3:1 majority and reduce it to 5:4.

Second, the data show that despite the country's current hostility toward Republicans, Americans still side significantly with protecting companies that help our government track terrorists from lawsuits.

That means that with this level of support from Americans, congressmen in every district in America can't help but feel pressure from their constituents to renew the Protect America Act. But only if we speak up.

So Call Your Member of Congress

This makes the path ahead for us clear: We must dial up the heat on Congress.

We have such overwhelming support from Americans on this issue that it should be easy to organize our friends and neighbors in our districts to make our voices heard in remarkable numbers.

Call your congressman -- then get your friends and neighbors to do the same.

Write your congressman -- then gather the signatures of your friends and neighbors so that your letter contains the added weight of the entire community.

Like the battle over amnesty for illegal immigrants, when the American people are sufficiently informed and activated to make their voices heard in Washington, there is no special-interest or elite establishment that can overcome our power.

		Your friend,

		Newt Gingrich

P.S. -- I'm happy to report that Real Change: From the World that Fails to the World that Works is once again on the New York Times bestseller list. It will be No. 8 on the March 9 list -- its sixth straight week since the book's debut. To those of you who have purchased the book, written reviews at Amazon.com, and encouraged your friends to buy it, thank you. Remember, you can find tools and tips on how to spread the word about Real Change and order autographed copies at newt.org/realchange.

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Comments

By danmurray @ Saturday, March 01, 2008 9:25 AM

....or how about lets change

"America...land of the free, home of the brave,"

to....

"America...land of the not so free, home of the not so brave."

By danmurray @ Saturday, March 01, 2008 9:23 AM

How about this quote from Ben Franklin;

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."

By danmurray @ Saturday, March 01, 2008 9:18 AM

Oh...the comment above came from Cato @ Liberty

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/

Get the facts before you decide.

By danmurray @ Saturday, March 01, 2008 9:13 AM

I''m an independent. This position seems to me to be contra to a free law. Also, the polling appears to be skewed and flawed.

How do you respond to this rebuke below:

Newt Gingrich’s organization recently released a poll purporting to show that Americans overwhelmingly support renewing the Protect America Act. But as a blogger at the Economist painstakingly explains, the high levels of support might be because the poll blatantly misrepresented what’s at stake in the surveillance debate.

Amazingly, even the first four words of the story, “in July of 2007,” are inaccurate, as the Protect America Act was actually passed in August. And it only gets worse after that. Not surprisingly, if you repeatedly misrepresent the state of the FISA debate, it’s possible to get randomly sampled voters to come to the conclusion you’re looking for. I think it’s telling that they seem to believe this level of deception was necessary to get the result they were looking for.

In case you’re curious how voters respond to a less blatantly biased poll, 61 percent of voters believe that “the U.S. government should have to get a warrant from a court before wiretapping the conversations U.S. citizens have with people in other countries,” while only 35 percent believe that “the government should be able to wiretap such conversations without a warrant from a court.” Similarly, 31 percent of voters believe that “Congress should give the phone companies amnesty from legal action against the companies,” while 59 percent believe that “citizens who believe their rights have been violated should be free to take legal action against those phone companies and let the courts decide the outcome.” That poll is from the ACLU, so it may be worth taking with a grain of salt, but its questions are certainly more representative than those of Gingrich’s group.

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