Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

The President can't go around in a steel box, as much as the Secret Service would like him to. Protection is an art form, keeping the President available to the public while protecting. Most of the hard protection is done by the police, the perimeter work.

Disney World is exactly the wrong description of how the Secret Service should operate in public. Their jobs are not about pleasing adults and children, but rather protecting the president and the first family.

We gauge risk literally hundreds of times per day, usually well and often subconsciously. We start assessing risk before the disaster even happens. We are doing is right now. We decide where to live and what kind of insurance to buy, just like we process all kinds of everyday risks: we wear bike helmets, or not. We buckle our seatbelts, smoke cigarettes, and let our kids stay out until midnight. Or not.

Security is an attempt to try to make the universe static so that we feel safe.

Millions of statements are made about the president every day on every subject and from every standpoint; threats of violence are not an integral feature of any one subject or viewpoint as distinct from others. Differential treatment of threats against the president, then, selects nothing but special risks, not special messages.

Once Iraq became a hot bed for kidnapping, reporters had to use every kind of trick they could manage to avoid it. This included chase cars, security men for more prosperous agencies and networks, and GPS signals on satellite phones that could pinpoint the journalist's locations.

I don't think I ever take huge risks, though I'm not scared of doing so.

Protection really takes on the personality of the President.

Our security strategies have not yet caught up with the risks we are facing. The globalization that has swept away the barriers to the movement of goods, ideas and people has also swept with it barriers that confined and localized security threats.

It all boils down to the safety of the public. It wasn’t a decision made lightly. This wasn’t about free speech. It was about safety.

Once you become president, you don't even have to stop for red lights. And if it looks like traffic's too bad, you just take a helicopter.

Well, what every place needs is a security plan that protects it.

Safety is top priority for us, and all our drivers are fully certified; all of them are checked. Their addresses are checked. Backgrounds are checked. To whatever extent the Indian system makes it possible to check.

Safety is always a paramount concern for us. We are always engaged with the studios and with what better structures can be done.

The mission of the Secret Service (to keep the president of the United States safe and secure) is, by its very nature, pivotal to the proper functioning of the country, and any failure to accomplish this mission has the potential to cause an immediate international crisis.

I'm not one who wants to micromanage the Capitol Police whatsoever. However, if they see or feel that there are some greater opportunities to provide the same, if not better, safety and security for folks, I think Capitol Police should explore all those options - but not just focus that from a cost perspective.

The two great risks are risking too much but also risking too little. That's for each person to decide. For me, not risking anything is worse than death. By far.

Life entails risk, and you have to draw some lines.

We will certainly have to rethink the way in which we design and protect places where large numbers of Australians and indeed this will happen around the world.

I don't think it's a matter of going back and having a review of our process. Our process is about as thorough as there can be. Is it imperfect? Yes. Is there risk? Yes, but we start with the fact that we have an American that's being held hostage and that American's life is in danger and that's where we start. And then we proceed from there.

I've been evolving in my stunt career Stunts have always had their place, and I have to measure them now. I've done things where, if I make a mistake, I could die. You really need to look at each thing. That usually is a mechanical failure. So, I have gone from doing everything, to listening and saying, "Maybe I shouldn't do this."

Somebody threw a book at President Obama. If you're trying to scare a president by throwing a book at him, you're one president too late.

The difference between a calculated risk and rolling the dice can be expressed in one word: homework.

Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.

I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.