Civil Liberties Violations Quotes

American citizens have been killed abroad by drones with no due process, no accountability, no judicial review.

[Fidel Castro] has a very good [human rights] record.

The president, who finds so much to complain about in other areas of the world, apparently saw nothing wrong in recognizing a Communist regime that has killed more people in its short history of control over the teeming millions of that great country than any other collection of dictators or tyrants in the history of the world.

Unfortunately the situation of human rights in Iran isn't improving. Some of the newspapers were shut down and the government didn't try to reopen the newspapers that were shut down before. And the laws are as bad as before.

Say what you will about Americans, but one thing they are not is passive. The Bush administration may have pushed through the Patriot Act weeks after 11 September, but, as the American public got to grips with how the law was affecting their individual rights, their protests grew loud and angry.

Donald Trump creates scapegoats in Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit First Amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.

Dissidents are not imprisoned as in the domains of the Kremlin, in the old days. They do not have their brains blown out by elite forces armed and trained by the reigning superpower, as happens in Washington's domains - with no particular concern at home - an important fact, one of many that help us learn about ourselves, if we choose.

If people say that here and there someone has been taken away and maltreated, I can only reply: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system--whether political, religious or economic--that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain "indicator species" of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections.

Obama has done things like Hitler did. Let me be very careful here. The National Socialists rounded people up and held them without trial, signed legislation that gave torture impunity, and spied on their citizens, just as Obama has. It isn't a question of what has been done that Hitler did. It's what does every dictator do, on the left or the right, that is being done here and now.

[On the House Un-American Activities Committee] They'll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem.

Our intelligence agencies have vast powers, and Obama used them illegally to spy on political opponents. This can't be allowed to stand.

One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity. If you can make them sufficiently uncomfortable, they frequently respond by doing what you need them to do in the spirit of setting people free or ceasing arrests.

One can have great concern for the people of Ethiopia, but it's another thing to inflict daily torture on the people of England.

It's very clear that Vladimir Putin has decided that he will eliminate his opponents and anyone who stands up for democracy and freedom. And he does so with relative impunity.

In spite of muzzling the press, imprisoning thousands, and engaging in torture, kidnapping and murder, the Socialist government was still vulnerable to the accusation of being "soft on Basques.

Gloucestershire police must be the envy of the human rights-abusing cop world. From Turkey to Indonesia they will say, 'Kidnapping peace protestors! How did they get away with that one?'

In Cuba I have always understood harsh treatment of dissenting voices as stemming from a "siege situation" imposed upon it from outside. And I believe that to a certain extent that is true.

Reports about very innocent people being thrown into detention, where they could be held for years without any representation or charges, is distressing.

We now live in a country with a thousand political prisoners, a country where each week there are new trials, where people are put in jail because they liked something on the Internet.

There's, under Obama, an epidemic has developed of abusing national security laws to crack down on legitimate use of the First Amendment.