Robert H. Jackson Quotes

Without the ability to talk about government power, there's no way for citizens to make sure this power isn't being misused.

In all questions between a government and an individual the presumption in every Englishman's mind is that the government is in the wrong.

Every amendment which I am convinced will have the tendency to lesson the danger of civil liberty by the central government will receive my sincere approbation.

Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.

I believe that it is my right and responsibility as an American to question our government when our government is wrong.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

No one in government should ever think that the citizens they work for can't or won't scrutinize their actions.

By ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Americans every day against abuse of power by those in authority.

The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to bare the secrets of government and inform the people.

Before my tenure, people didn't seem to think that citizens had a right to limit the size of their government.

Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what your government is doing to you.

Criticism in a free man's country is made on certain assumptions, one of which is the assumption that the government belongs to the people and is at all times subject to the people's correction and criticism.

It must never be forgotten ... that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.

To establish republican government, it is necessary to effect a constitution in which the will of the nation shall have an organized control over the actions of its government, and its citizens a regular protection against its oppressions

...no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.

Unfettered discretion [in obtaining information could] alter the relationship between citizen and government in a way that is inimical to democratic society.

You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.

Our government leaders... have made many mistakes in the past when they have lost sight of the sacred American values rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We are at the brink of even graver mistakes and assaults on these values.

I do not subscribe to the doctrine that the people are the slaves and property of their government. I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government.

The fundamental purpose of government is to protect its citizens.

Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.

Thank God for our form of government. The media won't let there be any cover-up.

I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.

Liberal Democrats in government will not follow the last Labour government by sounding the retreat on the protection of civil liberties in the United Kingdom. It continues to be essential that our civil liberties are safeguarded, and that the state is not given the powers to snoop on its citizens at will.

I trust my government. I actually have a trust for my government with my data, and I trust them to protect me. They've protected me - they've made the best efforts to protect me my whole life.