Poll: Americans Concerned WikiLeaks Dump will Hurt the U.S.

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.

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Of those Americans who heard about the website WikiLeaks' massive release of secret State Department documents, most think the incident will have damaging impact on U.S. relations overseas, a new CBS News poll shows.

About three-quarters of the public has heard about the Wikileaks release, and of those Americans, 60 percent believe it will have a damaging impact.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has cast his site as a place for whistle-blowers and said he released more than a quarter of a million State Department cables in the name of transparency.

The White House said the release of the documents does not diminish the United States' role as a leader in global affairs. However, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the release disrupted the diplomatic process, and she worked the phones in the wake of the document dump to ensure that U.S. foreign relations remained intact.

The CBS News poll found agreement from across the political spectrum on the impact of the document release. Seventy-four percent of Republicans say it will hurt the U.S., as do 52 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents.

In general, most Americans do not think the public has the right to know everything the government does, if secret information concerns national security. Only one in four thinks everything should be public, even if it might affect national security.

Democrats (30 percent) are more likely than Republicans (18 percent) to say the public has the right to know everything the government does.

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Read the Complete Poll

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This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,067 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone November 29-December 2, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

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Stephanie Condon is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of her posts here. Follow Hotsheet on Facebook and Twitter.

[open_your_eyes_people]

And also, this poll is total garbage. Most people I know support WikiLeaks. This poll really has nothing to do with WikiLeaks either. It's simply mainstream media's tricky way of trying to take down a righteous, truthful organization that threatens the lies that mainstream media runs on.

[open_your_eyes_people]

Assange has my vote for person of the year. In a world dominated by the bias of mass media, it's unbelievably refreshing to hear from someone who tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We have the right to know this, and I'll be livid if these bearers of truth are silenced by the U.S. government corrupt with lobbyists who fear the real truth.

[GiveMeLibertyOrDeath]

The title of your article asserts that most Americans believe that Wikileaks will hurt the US. The "poll" you use to back this up asked whether the public has a."The Right To Know Everything" or b."No Right to Know National Security Secrets" or c. I Dont Know.
I don't read or watch the MSM, nor do I know anyone who does. But this just confirms what a threat the MSM is to Americans-you should poll on that next time. The SOLE reason for this who article was for the title--you count on people not even reading the content of your article, but justt browsing through news links and seeing the title.
You make a mockery of the free press. If anything, this article shows that YOUR organization feels threatened by the leaks, because of the demand for a free press you and other corporate owned conglomerates want blocked.
If it wasn't so serious, I would LMAO. The only people who take your establishment seriously are poor elderly folk who are technologically naive or completely media illiterate people. Shame on you,

[documemts]

I pay for it? I get to know it.

[ktremelo6]

Propaganda at work. US mass media sucks. Might as well be China.

[Perovskite001]

Biggest note: This question has NOTHING to do with wikileaks. The question says 'Does the public have the right to know...'. Well guess what if you take Wikileaks out of the question a person isn't thinking "Yeah wikileaks is doing a good thing" when they answer the question. They are thinking "well ****. The public doesn't have the right to know our nuclear secrets or positions of our troops at all times."

There are some necessary secrets that we have to keep away from china, north korea, etc (and ACTIVELY keep away as they DO try to hack into the USA to find these things out). Anybody who answers 'the public has the right to know everything' isn't thinking correctly - the government needs to keep some secrets. That does NOT mean it keeps, at this time, the correct number of secrets. Wikileaks is a place to outlet things which are secrets but shouldn't be. Nothing released as of yes has put any americans in danger. The largest thing released was simply clasiffied only because it takes a lot of work to relable a classifed document to unclasified status and it would be stupid to try and do it for minor instances which everyone knows happens(OMG PEOPLE DIE IN WAR!?!?!). People get too worked up about this - sit and think - the government is real entity made of people. We need secrets and there is stuff that is classified that shouldn't be. 90% of classified documents are probably so because somebody would rather be yelled at for making something classified that shouldn't be than making something unclassified that shouldn't be. Its a safety thing.

Think people.

[fromthatshow]

25% of Americans are sane

[MSpsych64]

Just an adendum to the recent post on polls and stats. The first thing that i would look at is the generalizability of the sample population for these polls. 1067 adults is hardly a representative sample of the entire US population. Furthermore, as stated by another postee the polls are manipulated in that the answers are severely limited. I would also posit that the demographics of those polled may be considered as confounding as well as, the consideration of the overall knowledge of the incident among other factors. One must further be aware that any good statitician can manipulate the variables to reflect the results of bias, in one direction or another. Just as with seatbelt safety results generated by government interest groups that indicate a decline in fatalities due to seatbelt use. However the information that is not divulged is just as important as that which is. If there is a 3% decline in fatalities, what about the other 97%, what type of accidents, airbag useage, and other pertinent information for proper discernment of the issue in totality.

[gilmomuff]

You are offering very good comments on the "scientific" polls
who can be scientificaly ajusted, depending on the questions
asked and who is the customer looking/paying for what -he-ordered...

I can "see" the results a poll asking:
Do you like Obama's achievements in the morning ? 33% answered YES
Do you like Obama's achievements in the afternoon ? 35% answered YES

So, therefore a majority of 68 % of the people like Obama's achievements ! :-))

And so many more, yes, just as stupid...or plainly manipulated

Grrrr

[william-newton]

truth, government, cover up, misleading, keep you guessing, its the american way,. we are at war. it don't need to declare it.

[fritterandwait]

That supposed "poll" represents two completely different sentiments. One; the number of people that think it will damgage realtions and national security and two; peole who think we should get to see it. Another manipulated poll to make a manipulated point. Was the news fact and the Dukes of Hazzard fiction when I was kid, or have I just grown up to know they are both fiction?