Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2007-03-15 Mar 15, 2007If you ask Americans whether they want an FBI wire tax in their phone bill, they'll say, “No.” If I ask them whether they want a feature on their telephone which allows me to find their child, if they're taken, they'll say, “Yes.” I think it's a question of perception.~ Louis FreehEvery man should know that his conversations, his correspondence, and his personal life are private.~ Lyndon B. JohnsonSoon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen...~ Zbigniew Brzezinski Mar 14, 2007From that point on, the extraordinary system of spies and informers which has played an important part in the political work of the French state into our own time took shape. (Sartine, who became lieutenant general de police in 1759, is supposed to have said to Louis XV, "Sire, when three people are chatting in the street one of them is surely my man.") Eighteenth-century police manuals like those of Colquhoun in England or Lemaire in France are no less than general treatises on the government's full repertoire of domestic regulation, coercion, and surveillance.~ Charles TillyWays may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home.~ Justice Louis D. BrandeisAll violations of essential privacy are brutalizing.~ Katherine Fullerton Gerould Mar 13, 2007The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person’s] life.~ Justice William O. DouglasOf all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.~ C. S. LewisThe Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. It is one of the great landmarks in men’s struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.~ Justice William O. Douglas Mar 12, 2007If you want a Big Brother, you get all that comes with it.~ Erich FrommSome of the problems of governance in the United States today stem from an excess of democracy ... The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and non-involvement on the part of some individuals and groups.~ Samuel HuntingtonChoice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom.~ Thomas Jefferson Mar 9, 2007It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.~ VoltaireThose who do not believe in the ideology of the United States, shall not be allowed to live in the United States.~ Tom ClarkThe United States must cultivate a mental view toward world settlement after this war which will enable us to impose our own terms, amounting perhaps to a pax-Americana.~ U.S. Department of State Mar 8, 2007The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivaly of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.~ Mark TwainHistory teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.~ Ronald ReaganWe could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for self-government -- and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was ... there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.~ William McKinley Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print