Blake Farenthold Quotes

There was a possibility I could have been under surveillance.

If we take away all our privacy rights, we become our own terrorists.

NSA surveillance is a complex subject - legally, technically and operationally.

The surveillance of ordinary people is far greater than I would have imagined and far greater than the American public has been able to debate.

If we had known that one of those terrorist attacks was coming, could our government have electronically eavesdropped on the attackers without a warrant?

Everything I say and do, I assume that I am being spied on.

Americans don’t spy on Americans.

Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. Intelligence agencies are looking at phone numbers and durations of calls; they are not looking at people’s names, and they’re not looking at content.

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

I want to make it clear … that America is not interested in spying on ordinary citizens.

I can’t allow the U. S. Government to destroy privacy and basic liberties.

There used to be technological limitations … that provided a measure of privacy for Americans. Now with essentially no technological limitations—the technology can practically do anything—the only way to strike the appropriate balance between liberty and security is to embed that balance in the law.

The evidence does not support the proposition that there is a significant measure of safety that is added as a result of collecting all these records on law abiding Americans.

… there has been no instance in which NSA could say with confidence that the outcome would have been different without the... telephony meta-data program.

Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re still being watched and recorded.

Those who are troubled by our existing programs are not interested in repeating the tragedy of 9-11. And those who defend these programs are not dismissive of civil liberties. The challenge is getting the details right and that is not simple.

The right to freedom of association is fine, but why shouldn't the cops be allowed to mine your social network to figure out if you're hanging out with gangbangers and terrorists?

Do you check it when you travel, do you check it when you're just at home? They'd be able to tell something called your 'pattern of life.' When are you doing these kind of activities? When do you wake up? When do you go to sleep? What other phones are around you when you wake up and go to sleep? Are you with someone who's not your wife?

It's really weird watching the government watch me.

A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen.

Law-abiding citizens value privacy. Terrorists require invisibility. The two are not the same, and they should not be confused.

I suspect Obama did not know he was recording Angela Merkel's cell phones.

I grew up with the understanding that the world I lived in was one where people enjoyed a sort of freedom to communicate with each other in privacy, without it being monitored, without it being measured or analyzed or sort of judged by these shadowy figures or systems, any time they mention anything that travels across public lines.

Technology has enabled government to have investigative and situational awareness on a scale and scope that were science fiction when the Stasi shut its doors.

I knew from the beginning that privacy was going to be a huge issue, especially with regard to applying Total Information Awareness in counterterrorism. Because if the technology development was successful, a logical place to apply it was inside the United States.