Government Surveillance Quotes

Spying on the prime minister of Israel and Congress has nothing to do with national security - only politics.

I had traveled to Russia and met with Snowden, which was a pretty involved meeting that required encrypted communication and the like. And it was fascinating because of who he is and what he's done. And more so because what's going on between our two countries, Russia and the U.S., and to meet Edward Snowden in Russia was unforgettable.

Guard with jealous attention to the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force.

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.

I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within the 10 mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the rest of the globe.

If you look at the history of the FBI, it has become effectively America's political police.

The FBI was creating a world where citizens rely on Apple to defend their rights, rather than the other way around.

We don’t have to choose between preserving privacy and preventing terrorism. We do have to decide how much oversight and accountability there should be when the government conducts surveillance on its citizens.

There is no fear exception to the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

Think Apple, think the FBI. We are living 'Atlas Shrugged.' Why is it so important? Because I would hate for the country to have that rhetorical question: Where is John Galt, who is John Galt? John Galt is all of us.

Abolish the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Snowden and NSA leaders should be brought together face-to-face for questioning in public by a congressional investigatory committee, with both parties allowed to make their points and to counter the assertions of the other. If Snowden is lying, it will come out. If the NSA is lying, it will come out.

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

What the USA Freedom Act did is it did two things. Number one, it ended the federal government's bulk collection of phone metadata of millions of law-abiding citizens.

I will not let the patriot act, the most un-patriotic of acts, go unchallenged.

September 11 was just an excuse to expand the Patriot Act. Legislation which had been proposed for years just got stuck in.

If National Security Agency (NSA) heads fundamentally lack an understanding of what constitutes constitutionally protected communications, or worse, chose to disregard those directives, then it's time for the appropriate heads of these agencies to resign.

We are expected to believe that anyone who objects to the Department of Homeland Security or the USA Patriot Act is a terrorist, and that the only way to preserve our freedom is to hand it over to the government for safekeeping.

Efforts to constrain encryption through forms of extraordinary access will inevitably introduce vulnerabilities into the security of consumer products in ways that are likely to have adverse long-term effects on the security, privacy, and civil liberties of citizens.

Being on President Nixon's enemies list was the highest single honor I've ever received. Who knows who's listening to me now and what government list I'm on?

Opinions become dangerous to a state only when persecution makes it necessary for the people to communicate their ideas under the bond of secrecy.

Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations

The government can still conduct clandestine searches of innocent people's private information such as library, medical, and financial records. This is wrong and should have been addressed in a true compromise.

What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens' e-mails. I stand by that.

When people think of the American Identity, they don’t think of torture, they don’t think of illegal wiretapping … or many of the other things that have been happening in the last 6 years…. Singers are like the canary in the coal mine. When things are happening, they must be sung out.