A majority of voters are satisfied with the level of authority given to U.S. intelligence agencies to determine domestic surveillance targets, a new poll showed.
In the HarrisX poll for The Hill released Thursday, 51 percent of respondents said intel agencies have "the right amount of power" in selecting Americans suspected of crimes for secret monitoring.
According to the survey, GOP voters were more likely than independents or Democrats to say the FBI and National Security Agency have too much power, with 34 percent of Republicans saying that, compared with 20 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of independents who agree.
The poll found 55 percent of Democrats said the intelligence community has the right amount of surveillance power; 25 percent said it needs more authority. Among Republicans, 49 percent said the agencies have enough surveillance power, while 17 percent said they need more. Half of independents said agencies have enough surveillance authority, while 23 percent said they need more power.
"Really, you can't take it out of the current partisan context," Ruy Teixeira, a political analyst with the left-leaning Center for American Progress told Hill.TV about the poll's findings.
Under federal law, agencies like the FBI and NSA can't monitor citizens suspected of committing crimes unless they get court authorization. President Donald Trump and many of his supporters have criticized those agencies after the FBI obtained warrants to monitor a former aide to Trump's his 2016 presidential campaign, suspecting the agencies are part of an informal "deep state."
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