Warrantless wiretaps : Do Americans care whether their government spies on them? The Bush Administration desperately hopes not.

They’re betting the farm that most Americans won’t mind that the president broke the law if they are convinced he did it to protect them.

But if a new private poll is any indication of public sensitivities on the issue, they may have bought the farm instead.

According to the New York Times, results of a poll for the Ponemon Institute, a privacy consulting firm, showed that on the subject of domestic spying and other government intrusions into the privacy of citizens, 88 percent of Americans were “concerned,” and 54 percent were “very concerned.”

Lawrence Ponemon, the institute’s founder, said that the 88 percent concerned about government intrusion is about double the number concerned about corporate privacy breaches like data theft at banks and credit card companies and similar security lapses.

The poll was taken after the New York Times revealed that Mr. Bush okayed hundreds of warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens despite legal prohibitions against it.