Benjamin Wittes Quotes

The Espionage Act is very broadly written. It doesn't make distinguish - or it doesn't make distinctions between categories of people that can receive and publish information and under what circumstances.

Mr. Luskin also says that Rove did not knowingly disclose classified information and did not tell any reporters that Valerie Plame worked for the C.I.A.

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who transmit classified information and documents.

I would never jeopardize classified information. I served my country well and loyally, and I had to sue the C.I.A. on First Amendment grounds.

Leaking classified information is a crime. And if we have evidence that somebody in the executive branch is committing a crime, we should prosecute that person.

Snowden has enough [sic] information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had. The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare.

Clapper has been straight and direct in the answers that he's given, and has actively engaged in an effort to provide more information about the programs that have been revealed through the leak of classified information.

In a sad twist of fate, the bill to reauthorize the Patriot Act was debated on the floor of the House of Representatives the same day that terrorists struck again.

We are expected to believe that anyone who objects to the Department of Homeland Security or the USA Patriot Act is a terrorist, and that the only way to preserve our freedom is to hand it over to the government for safekeeping.

I said in court a long time ago that I didn't see that the Soviet Union was significantly helped by the information I gave them, nor that the United States was significantly harmed.

Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff.

One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It ain't.

Do we fear terrorism so much that we throw out our Constitution, and are we unwilling and afraid to debate our Constitution?

I will not counter the insanity of the PATRIOT Act with an overblown fear of my rights being taken away.

At that point, which would be around February 2002, they came and they confiscated my computer, because, they said, they were suspecting that I was communicating with certain Senate members and taking this issue outside the Bureau.

Since we enacted the PATRIOT Act almost three years ago, there has been tremendous public debate about its breadth and implications on due process and privacy.

It does not help when an administration, in response to American attacks on American soil and American individuals, the administration ends up asking Americans to give up their First Amendment rights for which our service members are fighting.

The U. S. press has become a major source of unauthorized intelligence information. Classified information disclosed in the press is the equivalent of information obtained by enemy espionage.

The secrecy stamp … has been used to withhold information which in 99 ½ percent of the cases would present no danger to national security.

We should outlaw all wiretapping—public and private, wherever and whenever it occurs, except when the security of the nation itself is at stake—and then only with the strictest safeguards.

The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the constitution than protect our nation’s security.

The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.

There has been no more significant disclosure in the history of our country. And I’ll include the Pentagon Papers in that.

Domestic intelligence activity has threatened and undermined the Constitutional rights of Americans to free speech, association and privacy. It has done so primarily because the Constitutional system for checking abuse of power has not been applied.

We would not have a national discussion without the actions of Edward Snowden. Democracy is at work because of Edward Snowden.