Americans Don't Want Prosecution for Reporters Publishing Leaked Information

Even though most Americans believe the exposure of the governments secret surveillance effort has probably hurt U.S. national security, not many of them believe reporters who reveal the information should be punished for it.

An overwhelming majority -- 68 percent -- of Americans say reporters who publish leaked information they receive from whistleblowers shouldn't be punished for publishing the information. On the contrary, only 15 percent of American voters believe reporters should be punished for doing that.

The majority of Americans aren't sure if they view Edward Snowden, the whistleblower in the NSA case, as a hero or a traitor. Most said he was somewhere in between or that it was too early to decide.

But that doesn't mean they're necessarily hot on the government's side of the story. President Obama and several senior officials said the surveillance program had averted several terrorist attacks, but only 35 percent of Americans believe they're actually telling the truth. Almost half of Americans believe Obama and the senior officials are just trying to justify the program.

The national survey of 1,000 adults was conducted on June 17-18. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.