Government Infringement on Personal Freedoms

Question

A student here wants to do research on how governments restrict personal freedoms (a la all the access to information restrictions in 2001/2002) after events like 9/11 and Pearl Harbour. He's required to show some data on this topic for his project as well.

It doesn't strike me as impossible that a survey has been done that would touch on this, perhaps asking people if they felt the government had strongly affected or not affected at all, etc their freedoms, but I've searched and checked the DLI archive and haven't seen anything so far.

If anyone has any ideas on where this student might turn they'd be appreciated.

Answers

1. These types of data are most likely to be found in public opinion polls rather than dli (which is just StatCan). A good place for your student to start would be the Canadian Opinion Research Archive at Queen's. The URL is:
http://jeff-lab.queensu.ca/poadata/search/

2. I thought there might be something in one of the Canadian Election Surveys. However, the best recent question I could find was in the 2004 mail-back survey: "How much respect is there for individual freedom and human rights nowadays in Canada?" with responses ranging from "A lot" to "Not at all".

The surveys are accessible here:
http://www.ces-eec.umontreal.ca/surveys.html

The World Values Survey (conducted in Canada most recently in 2000 and 2005, 2005 data not yet available) asks some questions that get at this topic area - one question about priorities for the government gives alternatives including preserving order in the nation" and "protecting freedom of speech," among a couple of others. A question asking "How much respect is there for individual human rights nowadays in this country?" follows a question asking "how democratically is this country being
governed today?"

Data and documentation is here:
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/