Among the topics President Bush plans to address in his State of the Union speech tonight, homeland security is surely near the top of the list. Mixed poll results indicate that while the American public now demonstrates confidence in the strength of U.S. domestic security, it is far from complacent.

Current optimism may be bolstered by increased federal spending on future security measures in response to the terrorist attacks. Bush recently signed a defense spending bill that included $8.4 billion in emergency supplemental funding for homeland security, and last Thursday the president announced a plan to nearly double spending on homeland security to $37.7 billion in the next fiscal year.

Gallup Poll data collected in early January 2002* indicate that more than three-quarters of Americans (77%) express confidence that the U.S will be able to prevent major acts of terrorism from occurring domestically in the future, and an equal proportion believe that government efforts to protect Americans since Sept. 11 have made the U.S. safer. Additionally, 79% of Americans claim to be satisfied with the nation's military strength and preparedness -- an increase of 18 percentage points since January 2001.

However, other figures suggest that the public would welcome more reassurance than it is currently seeing: only 10% of the public is "very satisfied" with the nation's security from terrorism, with another 41% saying they are "somewhat satisfied." National security proposals that might once have been considered too intrusive will probably be met with greater acceptance today. When asked, "Would you support or oppose a law requiring all adults in this country to carry a government-issued national identification card that includes information such as their fingerprints?" a majority of Americans (54%) said they would support the idea, with 43% saying they would oppose it.

The mixed bag of poll results on homeland security suggests that Americans are generally optimistic about the future based on the government's actions up to this point. However, Americans also remain wary of future terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and expect further advancements to make them feel safer.

* Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,015 adults, aged 18+, conducted Jan. 7-9, 2002. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points.