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Poll: NSA Leakers are 'Traitors'

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Americans overwhelmingly support President Bush's decision to wiretap suspected terrorists operating inside the U.S. without first obtaining a court order - and a solid plurality believe those who leaked news of the secret operation are "traitors," a Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll has found.

Asked whether the president "should have the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor electronic communications of suspected terrorists without getting warrants, even if one end of the communication is in the United States?" - 58 percent of those surveyed said yes.

Just 36 percent disagreed.

According to Dick Morris, who reveals the poll's stunning results in today's New York Post - even 42 percent of Democrats back the Bush surveillance program.

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  The results flatly contradict a widely reported Associated Press poll two weeks ago, which sampled a dispropotionate percentage of Democrats and concluded that the public objected to the Bush surveillance program.

In another stunning finding, the Fox poll found by that a margin of nearly 2 to 1, the American public believes that those responsible for exposing the super secret surveillance program have betrayed the country.

Fifty percent of those surveyed called those responsible for blowing the NSA's cover "traitors," while just 27 percent agreed with media claims that the leakers were "whistleblowers."

By a margin of 42 to 34 percent, even Democrats agreed with the "traitor" label.

Americans also strongly support renewing the Patriot Act by a nearly 2 to 1 margin [57 to 31 percent].

And a solid plurality of those surveyed - 46 percent - credit Bush administration counterterrorism efforts for preventing al Qaeda from carrying out another 9/11-style attack on the U.S.

Notes Morris:

"These statistics tell us that Democratic politicians are just hurting themselves by raising and dwelling on the wiretap issue . . . We're more afraid of al Qaeda than of our own elected officials."

"In other words," he adds, "Ann Coulter represents the Democratic mainstream better than Al Gore on this one!"

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