The receptiveness to cameras on street corners reflects a public that regards terrorism as a fact of life in the United States — 9 out of 10 people polled said Americans would always have to live with the risk — but also a threat that many believe the government can combat effectively through rigorous law enforcement and proper regulation. For all that confidence, there are lingering questions about the role of the nation’s intelligence agencies before the attacks, with people divided about whether they had collected information that could have prevented them (41 percent said they had; 45 percent said they had not). While investigations into the Boston bombings are ongoing, more Americans (53 percent) think the suspects in the attacks were connected to a larger terrorist group than think they acted alone (32 percent). Polls taken in the aftermath of terrorist attacks often show spikes in the public’s fears of another attack.  Poll analysis by Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backus 
 
 In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, 66 percent of Americans now think another terrorist attack in the U.S. is at least somewhat likely in the next few months, according to a new CBS News/ New York Times poll, up from 37 percent last year. Still, other responses were unchanged since the Boston bombings: Twenty-three percent said they were very concerned about a terrorist attack in the area in which they live, about the same as said so in 2010. Obama: U.S. officials did their jobs investigating Boston bombing suspect 
 
 Mr. Obama said Tuesday that law enforcement did an "exemplary job responding to the bombings, and Americans seem to agree: 84 percent said they approve of the way federal and local law enforcement handled the attack. That confidence came even as people were divided about whether their state and local authorities were prepared to deal with such an attack (48 percent said they were prepared; 41 percent said they were not).
– Public opinion is firmly behind having more surveillance cameras in public places in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, according to a new CBS/New York Times poll. Some 78% of people called the cameras—which helped identify the suspects—a good idea, and only 20% said the government had gone too far in restricting civil liberties to fight terrorism, the poll found. "There are cameras in stores and supermarkets," one respondent, a saleswoman in Florida, said in a follow-up interview. "Our families would be safer and surveillance cameras would provide evidence to help agencies pursue people, like they just did in Boston." The poll found that 66% of Americans believe another terrorist attack is at least somewhat likely in the next few months, up from just 37% at this time last year, according to the poll, which also found that the public gave law enforcement agencies high marks for their handling of the bombings. Some 84% approved of how law enforcement dealt with the attacks, and 68%—including 47% of Republicans—approved of President Obama's response.