Secret Surveillance Quotes

Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone "bugs", surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous -- and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations -- have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity. Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable.

In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?

The word 'eavesdropper' originally referred to people who, under the pretence of taking in some fresh air, would stand under the 'eavesdrip' of their house - from which the collected raindrops would fall - in the hopes of catching any juicy tid-bits of information that might come their way from their neighbour's property.

You don't hear anybody talking about what FBI is doing with the NSA collected data. That's because they're doing it in secret. I mean, they're also using it to convict people of crimes, and that's what they're doing - they're looking at it for criminal activity.

Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President

To those in the executive branch who say ‘just trust us’ when it comes to secret and warrantless surveillance of domestic communications, I say, ‘Remember your history.’

The FSB's invisible presence continued; the agency became an intangible part of my Moscow life - sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly, with someone in a back room clearly turning the volume of minor persecution up and down.

Americans should sense danger when a government tries to stop a newspaper from disclosing the origins of an unpopular war ... or accuses a newspaper of endangering national security by disclosing secret and illegal wiretapping.

It is quiet here and restful and the air is delicious. There are gardens everywhere and police spies lie in the bushes. There are nightingales in every garden, but police spies only in mine, I think. They sit under my windows in the darkness of the night and try to get a glimpse of how I spread sedition in Russia.

Of what use are all the codes in the world, if by means of confidential reports, if for trifling reasons, if through anonymous traitors any honest citizen may be exiled or banished without a hearing, without a trial?

Although the organizing logic of our nation's surveillance apparatus is invisibility and secrecy, its operations occupy the physical world.