Nearly nine in 10 Americans say it's important to know presidential and congressional candidates' positions on open government, but three out of four view the federal government as secretive, according to a survey released Sunday.
Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University conducted the survey in conjunction with Sunshine Week, a nationwide effort by news media outlets to draw attention to the public's right to know.
The survey found a significant increase in the percentage of Americans who say they believe the federal government is very or somewhat secretive, from 62% of those surveyed in 2006 to 74% in 2008.
That's a sobering jump, said David Westphal, Washington editor for McClatchy newspapers and co-chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' (ASNE) Freedom of Information Committee.
"On the other hand, it's gratifying to see that almost 90% believe a candidate's position on open government is an important issue when they make their election day choices," he said.
The survey of 1,012 adults was commissioned by ASNE amid a year-long campaign to have all office seekers discuss their government-access views.
Half of the poll respondents said government at the state level is secretive, while 44% viewed it as open. Those who see local government as secretive increased from 34% in 2007 to 40% in 2008.
A majority of people also want access to information such as whom lawmakers meet with each day (82%), police reports about specific crimes in local neighborhoods (71%) and permits for concealed handguns (66%). About half said they do not object to officials asking people who seek records to identify themselves or to explain their motivation.
Although only about a quarter of adults said they believed the U.S. government has opened their mail or monitored their phone conversations without a federal warrant, three-quarters believed it has happened to people in the USA, and two-thirds said it is very or somewhat likely to have happened to journalists.
The survey was conducted Feb. 10-28 by telephone by members of Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University. The poll has a margin of error of +/-4 percentage points.