Most feel civil liberties not harmed by war on terror

Most Americans do not believe the Bush administration has gone too far in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terror, a new CNN poll released Thursday suggests.

While 39 percent of the 1,013 poll respondents said the Bush administration has gone too far, 34 percent said they believe the administration has been about right on the restrictions, according to the Opinion Research Corp. survey. Another 25 percent said the administration has not gone far enough.

Asked whether Bush has more power than any other U.S. president, 65 percent of poll respondents said no. Thirty-three percent said yes. Of those who said yes, a quarter said that was bad for the country.

Seventy-two percent of poll respondents said they believe the size of the federal government has increased in the past four years. Twenty percent believe it has decreased, and 8 percent had no opinion.

Fifty-eight percent of poll respondents said they would not want their son or daughter to grow up to be president. Fifty-six percent, however, said they would want their child to grow up to be a member of Congress.

The last three questions were asked of a half sample, or about 507 people.

The telephone poll was conducted October 20-22. The sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points for questions asked of the full sample and plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for questions asked of the half sample.

CNN