Adam Cohen Quotes

Secrecy at the level of the individual suspect is different from keeping the very existence of massive surveillance programs secret.

I want to make it clear … that America is not interested in spying on ordinary citizens.

The Fourth Amendment is on life support and the chief agent of that is the National Security Agency.

We need to protect the privacy rights of all Americans, and that means stopping the federal government from spying on the cellphones and emails of law-abiding citizens.

In an age when many of our citizens casually reveal information about themselves in social media wildly beyond anything imaginable only a decade ago, it would seem to be a useful exercise in civics to re-educate the public about the value and purpose of protecting against unwarranted government intrusion.

I think the American public can accept the fact if you tell them that every time you pick up the phone it's going to be recorded and it goes to the government. I think the public can understand that.

When people talked about protecting their privacy when I was growing up, they were talking about protecting it from the government. They talked about unreasonable searches and seizures, about keeping the government out of their bedrooms.

Since we enacted the PATRIOT Act almost three years ago, there has been tremendous public debate about its breadth and implications on due process and privacy.

It is unclear exactly how many law enforcement agencies are currently using this capability, but it is reasonable to say that while resource limitations used to discourage the government from tracking you without a good reason, these constraints have largely disappeared.

Since the first Patriot Act, as this has evolved, more and more of the privacy of Americans is disappearing. And that’s going to hurt us; it’s not going to make us safer.

I can’t allow the U. S. Government to destroy privacy and basic liberties.

Just because technological advances have made it easier for the federal government to collect information doesn't mean that our privacy rights can or should be violated on the ground or in the air.

The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control, but I'm a little optimistic with some recent Supreme Court decisions, such as law enforcement mostly now needing a warrant before searching a smartphone.

Ironically, one of the clearer threats to consumer privacy is the government's largely unchecked ability to collect your sensitive information without due process.

The 'Total Information Awareness' project is truly diabolical - mostly because of the legal changes which have made it possible in the first place. As a consequence of the Patriot Act, government now has access to all sorts of private and commercial databases that were previously off limits.

A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen.

The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA's compliance record.

The Patriot Act, passed overwhelmingly but hastily after 9/11, allows the FBI to obtain telecommunication, financial, and credit records without a court order.

We want our government to protect us, to make sure something like 9/11 never happens again. We quickly moved to give law enforcement more power to do this. But that now begs the question, did we move to fast? Did we give too much power away? I don't have the answer.

The surveillance of ordinary people is far greater than I would have imagined and far greater than the American public has been able to debate.

No one in their right mind can say to me with a straight face that the Patriot Act has not aggregated the Fourth Amendment.

We cannot go up on a wire. We cannot do a search without a judge on the FISA Court approving it and determining that we have met the standard that has been set forth by Congress in order to utilize these techniques.

The NSA is forbidden to 'target' American citizens, green-card holders or companies for surveillance without an individual warrant from a judge.

Privacy is tremendously important. I believe the American people, and all people, should be skeptical of government power, should ask hard questions: What is the authority? What is the oversight? That's the way it ought to be.

What is the government doing or not doing in terms of tracking you, following you, investigating you? And if you're suspicionless, it should be none of the above.