Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2007-03-16 Mar 16, 2007I am not a number, I am a free man!~ Patrick McGoohanThe real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.~ U. S. Privacy Study CommissionComplete and accurate surveillance as a means of control is probably a practical impossibility. What is much more likely is a loss of privacy and constant inconvenience as the wrong people gain access to information, as one wastes time convincing the inquisitors that one is in fact innocent, or as one struggles to untangle the errors of the errant machine.~ Victor Ferkiss 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 Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print