Poll: Majority Supports Military Tribunals

Nov. 28 -- Putting security ahead of civil rights concerns, six in 10 Americans support using military tribunals to try noncitizens charged with terrorism. And larger majorities endorse other controversial law-enforcement measures in the government's anti-terrorism campaign.

An ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll finds 59 percent favor the tribunals, a number that holds steady when the pros and cons are outlined. When people are told that President Bush favors the plan, support advances to 64 percent.

More — nearly three-quarters — favor wiretapping conversations between people held on terrorism charges and their lawyers. Nearly eight in 10 support efforts to interview 5,000 young men from the Middle East, despite suggestions this reflects unfair profiling on the basis of national origin. And still more, 86 percent, say the government's detentions since Sept. 11 — with about 600 people still held — are justified.

Sizable majorities, moreover, explicitly reject suggestions that the government, in its war on terrorism, has not done enough to protect civil rights. Anywhere from 69 percent to 81 percent say the government is adequately protecting the rights of average Americans, Arab-Americans, American Muslims, noncitizen Arabs and Muslims, and individuals who have been investigated for suspected involvement in terrorism.

All these are part of a continued solid front in public opinion since Sept. 11. Confronted with both the human and material cost of terrorism, most Americans have lined up behind the government's response, and remain there. Eighty-nine percent continue to approve of President Bush's job performance, a number that used to be astonishing. And 69 percent approve "strongly."

Over There

Support for the military action in Afghanistan remains similarly overwhelming, at 91 percent (79 percent support it "strongly.") More than nine in 10 Americans say the war is going well, and the number who say it's going "very well" has nearly doubled since early this month, to 42 percent.