Quotes About Civil Liberties

#1. After each perceived security crisis ended, the United States has remorsefully realized that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary.

William J. Brennan

#2. Republicans are horrible with civil liberties, and not so good with dollars and cents. Democrats are horrible with dollars and cents, and not so good with civil liberties.

Gary Johnson

#3. Any court which undertakes by its legal processes to enforce civil liberties needs the support of an enlightened and vigorous public opinion which will be intelligent and discriminating as to what cases really are civil liberties cases and what questions really are involved in those cases.

Robert H. Jackson

#4. I believe that all forms of socialism have been proven over time to result in a loss of both economic and civil liberties, with increasing poverty.

John Mackey

#5. The new laws passed by Congress in the name of fighting terrorism pose a greater danger to the civil liberties of American citizens than to the operations of terrorists. Powers once assumed are never relinquished, just as bureaucracies, once created, never die.

Charley Reese

#6. I have very real concerns about the civil liberties implications of ultimately requiring every resident to submit themselves for compulsory fingerprinting or some other biometric test.

Patricia Hewitt

#7. It is idle to talk of civil liberties to adults who were systematically taught in adolescence that they had none; and it is sheer hypocrisy to call such people freedom loving.

Edgar Friedenberg

#8. We must erase bin Laden's ugly legacy, not extend it: by ending the Patriot Act's erosion of our civil liberties, we can protect the freedoms that make America worth fighting for.

Aaron Swartz

#9. One of the most clearly marked trends for over twenty years has been the decline in civil liberties.

Charles A. Reich

#10. Most white Americans were willing to sacrifice civil liberties in the name of national security as long as they were the civil liberties of someone else.

Neil Nakadate

#11. The arc of American history almost inevitably moves toward freedom. Whether it's Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, the expansion of women's rights or, now, gay rights, I think there is an almost-inevitable march toward greater civil liberties.

James McGreevey

#12. Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive means of protection.

William S. Cohen

#13. Liberals say they are for civil liberties and personal freedom, but they continue to advocate government regulation of business, redistribution of wealth, and various forms of social engineering to manipulate human relationships and attitudes.

Richard Ebeling

#14. Using a broad brushstroke, I think Libertarian - most of America are socially accepting and fiscally responsible. I'm in that category. I think, broadly speaking, that's a Libertarian. A Libertarian is going to be somebody who's really strong on civil liberties.

Gary Johnson

#15. At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.

Louis D. Brandeis

#16. In the defense of civil liberties there can be no exceptions, or there will soon be many.

A.J. Muste

#17. I believe in civil liberties for homosexuals. I guess I'd have to say I'd draw the line at letting them teach in the schools.

Jack Kemp

#18. We have got to protect privacy rights. We have got to protect our God-given, constitutionally protected civil liberties, and we are not doing that in the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security, as well as the TSA, is a great culprit in being a Gestapo-type organization.

Paul Broun

#19. The spine of the FBI is the rule of law. The spine of the FBI is a commitment to doing the right thing, in the right way, while protecting civil liberties.

James Comey

#20. But 18 years after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, there still remains unfinished work to completely rectify and close this regrettable chapter in our Nation's history.

Xavier Becerra

#21. Reading is the true foundation of our civil liberties.

Patricia O'Hara

#22. When I think of civil liberties I think of the founding principles of the country. The freedoms that are in the First Amendment. But also the fundamental right to privacy.

Tim Cook

#23. George W. Bush and his administration embarked on a full-scale assault on civil liberties, human rights and the rule of law, walking away from his international obligations, tearing up international treaties, protocols and UN conventions.

Bianca Jagger

#24. We believe that government in Britain is there to protect people from terrorism and from the worst criminality, but never at the expense of our civil liberties and the basic tenets of our legal system.

Charles Kennedy

#25. How can you be conservative and justify wiretapping people without a warrant? We're supposed to be the party of personal freedom and civil liberties.

Roger Stone

#26. Well, take the evolution of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It began as hackers' rights. Then it became general civil liberties of everybody - government stay away.

Esther Dyson

#27. Those who are troubled by our existing programs are not interested in a repeat of 9/11, and those who defend these programs are not dismissive of civil liberties. The challenge is getting the details right, and that's not simple.

Barack Obama

#28. Those concerns of a national character-such as air and water pollution that do not respect state boundaries, or the national transportation system, or efforts to safeguard your civil liberties-must, of course, be handled on the national level.

Ronald Reagan

#29. You're like everyone else, Strike; you want your civil liberties when you've told the missus you're at the office and you're at a lap-dancing club, but you want twenty-four-hour surveillance on your house when someone's trying to force your bathroom window open. Can't have it both ways.

Robert Galbraith

#30. And I hear from time to time people say, hey, wait a second, we have civil liberties we have to worry about. But don't forget the most important civil liberty I expect from my government is my right to be kept alive, and that's what we're going to have to do.

Mitt Romney

#31. I trust the federal government not to trample on civil liberties.

Tucker Carlson

#32. In order to have greater visibility of the larger cyber threat landscape, we must remove the government bureaucratic stovepipes that inhibit our abilities to effectively defend America while ensuring citizens' privacy and civil liberties are also protected.

Michael McCaul

#33. America stands strongest in challenging terrorism when we do not give up an inch of our civil liberties.

Dennis Kucinich

#34. Most liberals think of civil liberties as their Achilles heel. It isn't.

Joe Biden

#35. Americans need to understand the significance of having their civil liberties dismantled. It doesn't just affect terrorists and foreigners, it affects us all.

Bianca Jagger

#36. Demanding domestic security in times of war invites carelessness in preserving civil liberties and the right of privacy. Frequently the people are only too anxious for their freedoms to be sacrificed on the altar of authoritarianism thought to be necessary to remain safe and secure.

Ron Paul

#37. Since I became chairman, I've tried to turn EFF into civil liberties and responsibilities.

Esther Dyson

#38. Obama behaves like a centrist who leans tentatively left on certain social programs but boldly right on military force and civil liberties.

David K. Shipler

#39. For me, it was definitely an education in being grateful. And appreciating the civil liberties we have today, the natural liberties we have at home.

Aldis Hodge

#40. As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city.

Gore Vidal

#41. We will not let terrorists change our way of life; we will not live in fear; and we will not undermine the civil liberties that characterize our Democracy.

Adam Schiff

#42. I finally had to go to the American Civil Liberties Union here in northern California to get my reply published to what I considered to be a hatchet job done by Stanley Crouch.

Ishmael Reed

#43. We must protect the very things that make America so special - most certainly including our civil liberties. But we cannot do so without strong national security and a thoughtful and informed discourse.

Mike Pompeo

#44. The copyright industry has managed to kill civil liberties for their own children, ushering in a dystopian surveillance machine, merely to avoid taking responsibility for their own business failures. I lack words to quantify my contempt for these utter parasites.

Rick Falkvinge

#45. Resistance to change in the mental health system comes disguised as protection of civil liberties and freedom of speech. As a result, many parents, families, and caregivers are at a loss and feel defeated by the majority of Americans who strive to maintain the current rules of society.

Tamara Hill

#46. You can gesture at the transnational problem of Islamist terrorism all you like, but it's just hot air unless you invest in proper security on the ground in your own country, with the right safeguards to civil liberties.

Giles Foden

#47. Opponents of civil liberties contend the NSA data collection has made our country more safe, but even the most vocal defenders of the program have failed to identify a single thwarted plot.

Rand Paul

#48. With the death of bin Laden, it's finally time for Congress to bring back the pre-9-11 legal norm, before we decided it was okay to toss out our civil liberties if the 'bad guys' were scary enough.

Aaron Swartz

#49. I am actually one of those who took President Obama at his word when he first ran - that he would get us out of ill-advised wars, that he would do something about health care costs, and that he would protect civil liberties. Like many Americans, I was disappointed.

Gary Johnson

#50. I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I'm proud of it.

Paul Krugman

#51. In the 1880s, people all over the world looked to America for inspiration. Its very existence was proof that it was possible to have a relatively free and peaceful country. No income tax, no foreign wars, no welfare state, no intrusions on civil liberties.

Harry Browne

#52. We must continue to be diligent in protecting Americans' civil liberties while preserving critical law enforcement tools we need to keep America safe.

Debbie Stabenow

#53. The Point, not unlike the Communist Chinese, the ACLU abhors individual religious freedom, and it supports only those civil liberties that fit its narrow political agenda.

Mark Hyman, M.D.

#54. America will be far safer if we reduce the chances of a terrorist attack in one of our cities than if we diminish the civil liberties of our own people.

Nancy Pelosi

#55. The government should always be the one defending civil liberties.

Tim Cook

#56. All Socialism is Democratic Socialism. Socialist nations take away civil liberties by referendum.

A.E. Samaan

#57. I think we [Americans] are going to look back and realize that the civil liberties that we've given up in the name of security, the authority that we've given Democratic and Republican presidents, all have contributed to a fraying of the fabric of our democratic republic.

Jeremy Scahill

#58. The Inspector General issued six reviews and reports on actions taken based on provisions of the act. In those six reports, the IG found that not one violation of an individual's civil liberties - a total of zero - had taken place since the act was instituted.

Jo Bonner

#59. I think when people talk about civil liberties, they sometimes forget that action taken to protect the citizen against physical violence and physical attack is a blow in favour and not a blow against civil liberties.

John Howard

#60. It is still in the lap of the gods whether a society can succeed which is based on "civil liberties and human rights" conceived as I have tried to describe them; but of one thing at least we may be sure: the alternatives that have so far appeared have been immeasurably worse.

Learned Hand

#61. Now that Bin Laden dead, can we get our civil liberties back?
That George Bush stole with the Patriot Act?

Ras Kass

#62. Most every charge you level at American capitalism applies with equal force to communism, with this nice difference, that the Reds make no pretense at such frivolities as civil liberties or environmentalism. The differences in degree are so great that they result in a radical difference in kind.

Edward Abbey

#63. Our basic civil liberties are in jeopardy, but we're going to be spending our time as a society arguing about whether or not schoolchildren should be forced to pay tribute to imaginary invisible beings who live in magical kingdoms in outer space some

Tom Tomorrow

#64. The history of America is to expand civil liberties in a responsible and civil manner. We need to remember that our wonderful Democracy with its freedoms has been working.

James McGreevey

#65. Since Humanism as a functioning credo is so closely bound up with the methods of reason and science, plainly free speech and democracy are its very lifeblood. For reason and scientific method can flourish only in an atmosphere of civil liberties.

Corliss Lamont

#66. This is clearly a case for the Civil Liberties Union," Ignatius observed, squeezing his mother's drooping shoulder with the paw. "We must contact Myrna Minkoff, my lost love. She knows about those things.

John Kennedy Toole

#67. It is crucial that civil liberties in this country be preserved otherwise the terrorists will win the battle against American values without firing another shot.

Russ Feingold

#68. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that.

Joe Biden

#69. We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War on Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over.

Gerald Bard Tjoflat

#70. Christians should be among those who speak loudest in defense of civil liberties and the protection of the weak.

Max Anders

#71. What we face is a scared populace, and because it's scared, it's willing to put up with what I think are inevitably more moves toward the constriction of civil liberties, mobility within the country, the ability to travel overseas, all of those things we have long taken for granted.

Michael Scheuer

#72. I urge calm and sensitivity to the fundamental civil liberties of our country.

Larry Craig

#73. I believe that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be reformed. We must improve the American public's confidence in, and perception of, our national security programs, by increasing transparency, strengthening oversight, and safeguarding civil liberties.

Dutch Ruppersberger

#74. It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end.

Felix Frankfurter

#75. Presidents who restrict civil liberties, even in wartime, are usually judged harshly for it.

David Greenberg

#76. The seemingly omnipresent storm clouds hanging over the Constitution often make it hard to find a silver lining. Every day, the front page of The Drudge Report is littered with stories of government assaults on our civil liberties - from local government officials all the way up to the Oval Office.

Bob Barr

#77. It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments.

Ludwig Von Mises

#78. Civil liberties victories never stay won, but must be fought for over and over again.

Ira Glasser

#79. I look forward to exercising my American civil liberties and getting fully, completely and legally married this year to my true love of over three years, Linda Wallem,

Melissa Etheridge

#80. The psychedelic issue is a civil rights and civil liberties issue. It is an issue concerned with the most basic of human freedoms: religious practice and the privacy of the individual mind.

Terence McKenna

#81. The American Civil Liberties Union, has helped neutralize the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our legal system by seeking new legal precedents.

Bill Bright

#82. Let me be clear: There is no stronger advocate for civil liberties in the Senate than myself.

Saxby Chambliss

#83. We followed the law, we follow our policies, we self-report, we identify problems, we fix them. And I think we do a great job, and we do, I think, more to protect people's civil liberties and privacy than they'll ever know.

Keith B. Alexander

#84. We must educate ourselves and others about our precious civil liberties to ensure that we never accept demands that we give up our Constitution so that the government can pretend to protect us.

Ron Paul

#85. Policymakers usually justify these measures by using a balancing argument in which the greater good is held to outweigh the suspension of civil liberties. Even in democracies, serious threats to state authority

Clarence Augustus Martin

#86. Since 9/11, the Bush administration has used that tragic event as a justification to rip up our constitution and our civil liberties. And I honestly believe that one or two 9/11s, and martial law will be declared in our country and we're inching towards a police state.

Michael Moore

#87. National security is the first duty of government but we are also committed to reversing the substantial erosion of civil liberties.

Theresa May

#88. It's time to resist efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union who have conducted a religious lobotomy on this country, seeking to strip it of any vestige of religious influence.

Cal Thomas

#89. I was on the state board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Betty Hill

#90. For as Jews, the problem happens to be more urgent and vital than for others; because the destruction of religion on America will involve the destruction also of the religious training of freedom; and with that our civil liberties.

Louis Finkelstein

#91. I believe that successfully addressing our national security needs while protecting our basic freedoms and civil liberties requires continual Congressional oversight, and I will continue to work to assert the role of this body in carrying out this grave responsibility.

Patrick J. Kennedy

#92. Those who would give up their civil liberties for security deserve neither.

Larry Flynt

#93. Civil liberties are a great heritage for Americans. They are not rights that the government gives to the people, they are the rights that the people carved out for themselves when they created the government.

Edward Bennett Williams

#94. Terrorism has replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country [America], for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria.

Howard Zinn

#95. Even though some in our government may claim that civil liberties must be compromised in order to protect the public, we must be wary of what we are giving up in the name of fighting terrorism.

Lucille Roybal-Allard

#96. For far too long the American public and business sector have kept their silence as civil liberties have been whittled away by statutory and regulatory measures.

Bob Barr

#97. I am ... a realist. The magnitude of what one terms license or civil liberties or personal freedom has got to be adjusted to the circumstances.

Lee Kuan Yew

#98. I do not know what has caused MacKinnon to become, and, more surprisingly, to remain, so obsessed with pornography, and so zealous for censorship. But let us not sacrifice our civil liberties on the altar of her obsession.

Richard Posner

#99. We've built a society that values civil liberties even at the expense of social order.

Charles Wheelan

#100. American high schools have physically imprisoned young people, stripped them of civil liberties and fed them a diet of p.c. pap.

Camille Paglia