The report focuses especially on how those perceptions have changed over time. Taking the U.S. population as a whole, without making any subgroup distinctions, it doesn't look like much has changed. In 2006, 44% of all respondents said "yes" -- that is, that they did perceive the federal government to be an immediate threat to citizens' rights and freedoms. In 2010, that number has gone up by just 2 points, to 46%.
Breaking the population down into partisan subgroups presents a very different picture, as suggested by this graph:
Instead of practically no change, as suggested by the undifferentiated figures, we see that Republicans and Democrats have completely switched sides. In 2006, only 21% of Republicans felt that the federal government was an immediate threat to citizens; now more than 65% do; in contrast, the number of Democrats who feel the same way has dropped from more than 55% in 2006 to 21% in 2010.
Finally, to piggyback on my last post, the Gallup report also presents this table, which presents the results of an open-ended follow-up question that was asked of those 46% of respondents who said that they do perceive the federal government to be an immediate threat to citizens' rights and freedoms:
As you can see, the responses included an array of fairly general statements about ideology and overall approaches to government, as well as some responses that zeroed in on relatively narrow, single-issue concerns -- a range that probably would not have been captured with a closed-ended question.
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