Jay Carney Quotes


We have to make sure that there is a legitimate security need. We don’t just do anything because we can.


Context

Few knew that the agency even had the technological capability of doing such a thing.


Citations

Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary (Democrat), Statement made when asked about the NSA bugging the personal cell phones of the heads of states of many of our closest allies.

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Related Quotes

Many American diplomats have been killed or wounded over the years. But as Kryss explains the only way to have perfect security is to not have ambassadors and other staff stationed abroad.


This quotation is particularly interesting when compared with {633126} that he said in his First Inaugural Address. His idealism was tempered some by his first 4 years in the Presidency.


He was trying to assuage the anger and anxiety when it became public that the NSA had been monitoring all the calls of American citizens and not only suspected terrorists. He made the distinction between metadata and content. He claimed NSA was gathering the phone numbers of the parties on the call, the time and duration, but not listening in to the contents. Critics asked how he could be sure and that if the agency were gathering all the data, they could easily listen to any. Later the agency admitted that it had “inadvertently” examined the content of some communications.


Expressing concern over President Obama extending some of the American citizen entitled privacy rights to foreigners. He was concerned that this might inhibit our spying efforts.


Jay Carney
Jay Carney
  • Born: May 22, 1965
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Public Servant

James Ferguson Carney is a former White House press secretary to President Barack Obama. He served as press secretary from February 2011 through June 2014. For the first two years of Obama's presidency, Carney was director of communications for Vice President Joe Biden. Prior to his government service, Carney worked for 20 years at Time Magazine, and was the magazine's Washington bureau chief from 2005 to 2008. As a Washington-based reporter, Carney appeared frequently on various political talk shows, including This Week with George Stephanopoulos for ABC News.