We even polled whether Americans support the near universally condemned practice of spying on European allies.

Yep, they support that one, too. The wonderful thing about the Google Surveys tool we use is that respondents can also comment on their opinion, which gives us some insight into their reasoning.

NSA Spying “Acceptable” The best question we have to determine any trends in public opinion is whether Americans think the NSA practices are “acceptable”. Since 2006, that number has hovered a little over 51 percent.

Here are a few comments from the poll:

“acceptable within limits”

“depends on their evidence for the order”