seasat's Journal - Polls show US citizens are against warrantless wiretapping. Why support it?

I was curious and figured that with the cave in on warrantless wiretapping that there must be an electoral advantage in supporting it. Maybe as someone who is to the left on civil liberties, I'm in the minority. When I searched for polls on the subject, I found that US citizens oppose warrantless wiretapping. Polls in 2006 showed a slight majority supporting it but the recent polls show the public has turned against it.

By 2007, US citizens did not support warrantless wire tapping.

Sixty-one percent of voters favor requiring the government to get a warrant from a court before wiretapping the conversations U.S. citizens have with people in other countries, with an outright majority of voters, 51 percent, “strongly” supporting the requirement, the poll of 1,000 likely 2008 general-election voters found.

Here's the excerpt from a just released Rasmussen survey:

One thing voters overwhelmingly agree, however, is that the government needs a search warrant if it wants internet providers or telecommunications companies to turn over customer records: 69% say so, as opposed to only 17% who say a search warrant is not necessary.

So with US citizens turning against the idea of warrantless wire tapping, what is the advantage in supporting it? Is the telecom lobby that powerful? Is it just a cool power that both our party and Repubs think the executive branch should have? I don't get the cave in by our Democratic party members.