Kenan Malik Quotes

There is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.

I am ready to debate how we fight terrorism without giving up our liberty.

It is ingrained into our national life that the rule of law makes us free.

The reason the U. S. has never had a major terrorist problem is that you can't rally public support of terrorism, because the channels are open to legitimate protest.

We completely uphold the right of freedom of assembly. But there is always that important balance between security and freedom of expression in countries undergoing circumstances like ours.

I do think that our freedoms are at risk.

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

And a democracy can't exist without free speech and the right to assemble. And that's what Americans tend to forget. And they're born into a culture where they take all of their freedoms for granted.

I think that, as Americans, we should never forget that when we tamper with freedom of speech, it is a very sensitive issue that affects all of our constitutional rights and privileges.

If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American - our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that.

And it is essential that in fighting terrorism, sacrifices should not be made on democracy.

In the area of national security, I urge the swift passage of an anti-terrorism law that will protect rather than subvert, enhance rather than weaken, the rights and liberties that terrorism precisely threatens with extinction.

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story.

Privacy is a right, but as in any democratic society, it is not an absolute right.

Upholding human rights is not merely compatible with fighting terrorism, it is essential.

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.

We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don't do that, the country would be in ruins.

The Constitution is a delusion and a snare if the weakest and humblest man in the land cannot be defended in his right to speak and his right to think as much as the strongest in the land.

Free speech, free press, free religion, the right of free assembly, yes, the right of petition—well, they are still radical ideas.

There is no nation so poor that it cannot afford free speech.

The principle of free speech [is] no new doctrine born of the Constitution of the United States. [It is] a heritage of English-speaking peoples, which has been won by incalculable sacrifice, and which they must preserve so long as they hope to live as free men.

I am not yet ready to agree that America is so possessed with evil that we must level all constitutional barriers to give our civil authorities the tools to catch criminals.

All of our freedoms – All of the time.

There should be constitutional liberty of speech and freedom of thought, which is the elementary right of every citizen under any civilized form of Government

It doesn’t keep us safe and it doesn’t keep us free if we give up our liberties to the government.