One reason it seems so long ago is that there have already been three public opinion polls done on the issue. The first, an ABC / Washington Post poll that was released less than 24 hours after the story broke, revealed that 63% of the public approved of the NSA program. That was followed by a Newsweek poll and a USA Today poll, both of which showed a narrow majority of Americans actually opposed the program.

Why the big difference in the numbers?

First, the ABC / Washington Post poll was quite rushed; the public hadn't yet had time to form a very solid opinion, and the sample size was relatively small.

But there was also a difference of language. Here is the wording of the first poll vs. the last poll (via Captain's Quarters):

Here's the question asked by the ABC/WaPo poll:

It's been reported that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the conversations. Would you consider this an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?

USA Today asked this:

As you may know, as part of its efforts to investigate terrorism, a federal government agency obtained records from three of the largest U.S. telephone companies in order to create a database of billions of telephone numbers dialed by Americans. How closely have you been following the news about this?

Based on what you have heard or read about this program to collect phone records, would you say you approve or disapprove of this government program?

Captain Ed, of course, believes that that two later polls were biased because they asked people how closely they'd been following the story, then asked those who said they were following it closely what they actually thought. Ed apparently thinks that's push-polling -- which says more about him than it does about me.

Clearly polling language can change the result of the poll, and that's especially true in this particular issue. I think that the American people want the government to aggressively fight terrorism, and want to be able to trust that their government is protecting them.

But the administration is finding -- much to its consternation -- that scaring people into silence isn't working anymore. And they are also finding that, more and more, the American people don't trust them to do the right thing.