The trade-off between security and liberty has been a leading frame for understanding public opinion about domestic surveillance policies. Most of the empirical work explicitly examining whether individuals meet the trade-off framework’s core attitudinal assumptions comes from European studies. This study uses a survey of US residents to assess the veracity of the assumptions embedded in the trade-off framework, namely whether domestic counterterrorism policies are simultaneously viewed as improving security and decreasing liberty. We find that the vast majority of US respondents do not meet the basic attitudinal assumptions of the trade-off frame. Next, we evaluate the source of these attitudes with a focus on whether attitudes toward surveillance policies merely relate to core political values or whether they also depend on the messages from political leaders. We find that both political values and opinion leadership shape these attitudes. Finally, because general attitudes towards surveillance and privacy often fail to have practical implications, we assess whether these attitudes matter for understanding the structure of policy support. Our results show that heightened terrorism threat positively associates with increased support for counterterrorism policies only when people believe these policies are effective security tools.

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评估美国安全与自由权衡的维度

安全与自由之间的权衡一直是理解公众对国内监督政策的意见的主要框架。明确检验个人是否满足权衡框架的核心态度假设的大部分经验工作来自欧洲研究。这项研究使用对美国居民的调查来评估权衡框架中所包含假设的准确性，即国内反恐政策是否同时被视为改善安全和减少自由。我们发现，绝大多数美国受访者不符合权衡框架的基本态度假设。下一个，我们评估这些态度的根源，重点是对监视政策的态度是否仅与核心政治价值观有关，或者它们是否还取决于政治领导人的信息。我们发现政治价值观和舆论领导者都塑造了这些态度。最后，由于对监视和隐私的一般态度通常没有实际意义，因此，我们评估了这些态度对于理解政策支持的结构是否重要。我们的结果表明，只有当人们认为这些政策是有效的安全工具时，加剧的恐怖主义威胁才能与对反恐政策的更多支持建立积极联系。由于对监视和隐私的一般态度通常没有实际意义，因此，我们评估了这些态度对于理解政策支持的结构是否重要。我们的结果表明，只有当人们认为这些政策是有效的安全工具时，加剧的恐怖主义威胁才能与对反恐政策的更多支持建立积极联系。由于对监视和隐私的一般态度通常没有实际意义，因此，我们评估了这些态度对于理解政策支持的结构是否重要。我们的结果表明，只有当人们认为这些政策是有效的安全工具时，加剧的恐怖主义威胁才能与对反恐政策的更多支持紧密相关。