Nat Hentoff Quotes

If the FBI parks a van bristling with cameras outside your house, you are justified in closing your blinds.

The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

I think that the government has an obligation to monitor communications that could reveal a plot to murder millions of Americans. Monitoring bowel movements? I'll leave that to some of the gay bloggers, that's much more their style.

Today in Germany, everyone is being watched--even the watchers.

We live in what's called an open society, which of course means they open our emails, open our phone records, and open our medical records.

I don't think there's anything, any threat out there today that anyone can point to, that justifies placing an entire population under mass surveillance.

The TSA tears through your bags at the airport and the NSA watches what books you buy and what you say over the telephone and online. It doesn't feel like anything is private anymore.

The intelligence community, in particular the FBI, have been sounding alarms about this for more than a year. So to argue that suddenly we have to do this because of the San Bernardino case doesn't really pass the straight-face test. I mean, they've been talking about this. And to say, well, it will only apply to this case, that just - that doesn't wash. This is a major piece of public policy.

The Olympics start on Friday, and Russia is implementing the most intensive security in Olympics history. During the games, the government will monitor every email, every social media message, and listen in on every phone call. In fact, people are even comparing Russia to the United States, that's how bad it is.

Terrorists and criminals are increasingly adept at exploiting cutting-edge technologies to carry out or to mask their crimes. To counter current and emerging threats, the FBI actively deploys a wide range of technology-based tools, capabilities, and training that enable and enhance intelligence, national security, and law enforcement operations.

But we had - I think if you look at law enforcement 10 years ago, if you look at the challenges, the FBI was focused excessively on what was happening in the United States.

The new rule says that the FBI has the right to go to public places on the same terms and conditions as other members of the public for counter-terrorism purposes.

I just operate on the assumption that all phone conversations are bugged.

The F.B.I. is about nuts and bolts. It's all about witnesses and procedure and walking the streets.

The Patriot Act allows and provides a basis for an exchange of information.

Since 9/11, the U.S.A. Patriot Act has torn down the invisible wall that was perceived as preventing the FBI and CIA from sharing information.

Homeland security intelligence done the wrong way will give us thought police.

If we give up all our privacy rights, have we become any safer?

Since the first Patriot Act, as this has evolved, more and more of the privacy of Americans is disappearing. And that’s going to hurt us; it’s not going to make us safer.

You could watch entire villages and see what everyone was doing. I watched NSA tracking people's Internet activities as they typed. I became aware of just how invasive U.S. surveillance capabilities had become. I realized the true breadth of this system. And almost nobody knew it was happening.

It is hard to work with the nagging doubt that perhaps some foreign intelligence agency is reading all your correspondence, especially when you know they have done so in the past.

I don't have a problem with stepped-up surveillance as long as we follow the rule of law.

We know there are a lot of amazing people that work for the FBI as investigators.

If the FBI gets the 'back doors' it wants, Internet services would be required to create a massive online infrastructure for law enforcement to spy on members of the public.

The inability to access evidence or intelligence despite the lawful authority to do so significantly impacts the FBI's ability to identify, investigate, prosecute, or otherwise deter criminals, terrorists, and other offenders.