Jeff Van Drew Quotes

As all of our lives become digital, the logic of encryption is all of our lives will be covered by strong encryption, and therefore all of our lives - including the lives of criminals and terrorists and spies - will be in a place that is utterly unavailable to court-ordered process. And that, I think, to a democracy should be very, very concerning.

It is not possible to debate the balance between privacy and security, including the rights and wrongs of intrusive powers, without also understanding the threats.

There is no world of absolute, complete privacy or a world of complete national security.

The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.

The right to personal privacy is precious. Without it, we are all potential victims for a prying secret police.

Nobody - myself included - believes that we could ever achieve total information awareness. But the government needs to set goals and long-range objectives. Total information awareness is a good goal.

We don’t have to choose between preserving privacy and preventing terrorism. We do have to decide how much oversight and accountability there should be when the government conducts surveillance on its citizens.

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

There's still a lot of things you can legitimately do to make America safe through electronic surveillance.

Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed.

On the question of information security, he claims that, in a Trump Administration, the U.S. government will not spy on its own citizens. If true, this would represent a turn away from the strong language that he has used about identifying terrorists on our soil.

David Cameron has already said, and I have said, that a Conservative government would be giving the security agencies and law enforcement agencies the powers that they need to ensure that they are keeping up to date as people communicate with data.

I think most people accept that it is necessary to have some surveillance in a democratic society. I think most people accept that it's important to have limits and clear safeguards on that.

This is a big debate concerning the values of the society in question: Whether the risk of a terrorist act is more important than the 100 percent right to privacy.

The problem is that the same technological tools we use to thwart terrorists can also be used against the people whose job it is to stop them.

The political solutions proposed against encryption are not going to work against terrorism.

One of the things we're going to have to discuss and debate is how are we striking this balance between the need to keep the American people safe and our concerns about privacy. Because there are some trade-offs involved. I welcome this debate, and I think it's healthy for our democracy.

Preventing terrorist attacks is of the highest important, but trashing the Constitution is not the right way to do it.

We have a reliable computerized network devoted to counterterrorist activities.

We must carefully consider card security solutions, such as adding photographs or machine-readable electronic strips, so to prevent further breaches of individual privacy that could result from changes to the design of Social Security Cards.

People talk about the Patriot Act that was passed immediately in the wake of September 11. What the Patriot Act did was break down the walls between the various agencies.

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.

The American people must be willing to give up a degree of personal privacy in exchange for safety and security.

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.

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