Patrick Leahy Quotes

Faced with the profound changes that AI technologies can produce, pressure for "more" and "tougher" regulation is inevitable. Misunderstanding about what AI is and is not, especially against a background of scare-mongering, could fuel opposition to technologies that could benefit everyone. This would be a tragic mistake. Regulation that stifles innovation, or relocates it to other jurisdictions, would be similarly counterproductive.

Technology can progress to an entire new generation in the time it takes one legislative committee to issue a report. Regulation of technology confronts us with two radically different time scales.

The world is enormously dangerous and scary. I worry very much for my daughter. I'm not sure we're in control any more, and I think the Internet is partly responsible for that.

I would prefer the [USA] government to be the policeman and not the businessman.

Government, not the oil industry, is the biggest 'profiteer' from oil. And it uses the tax revenue to expand its own authority at the expense of the individual, as it does with an endless number of other industries - including electric power, coal, lumber, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, aircraft, and agriculture. The Statist's intrusion to the free market is boundless.

If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.

When making public policy decisions about new technologies for the Government, I think one should ask oneself which technologies would best strengthen the hand of a police state. Then, do not allow the Government to deploy those technologies.

The coming changes in technology will be as profound as the creation of the Internet.

I was resistant to the Internet. I was afraid of it.

What we are finding out now is that there are not only limits to growth but also to technology and that we cannot allow technology to go on without public consent.

The same government that requires a taxpaying citizen to document every statement on his tax return decrees that questioning a welfare applicant demeans and humiliates him.

They think that the cure to big government is to have bigger government... the only effective cure is to reduce the scope of government - get government out of the business.

History is on the side of the regulators.

Communication always changes society, and society was always organized around communication channels. Two hundred years ago it was mostly rivers. It was sea-lanes and mountain passes. The Internet is another form of communication and commerce. And society organizes around the channels.

There are lots of levels of fear and complaint about the government getting involved in business. First and foremost, of course, is incompetence.

[D]ecade after decade, through taxes and regulations, governments at all levels took ever-increasing control over people's lives, wealth, and property. The control grew exponentially, decade after decade. The rationale was that the control was necessary -- for society, for the poor, for the nation, even for freedom itself. Americans continued living their life of the lie: they continued believing that the more control government exercised over their lives and property, the freer they became.

We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

There is no virtue in denying the law of gravity, and there should be no virtue in denying the limitations of government. ... The more we glorify government, the more liberties we will lose.

Net neutrality is a big deal to the left because it puts the government in charge of the internet. It puts the government in charge of content. It lets the government choose what you can watch and what you can't watch and what you pay for it. And that's bogus. In the name of competition, they want to take competition away from the net. They're leftists. They lie to you about what they want to do.

People who feared IBM were wrong, ... Technology is ever-changing.

I think that the Internet is our most profound and beautiful achievement. It is magnificent. We have the Internet as a layer of our thinking that doesn't control us, we control it, yet we don't have to be aware of it. It will be like a suit that really fits well.

I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.

Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master.

I think that's actually what's missing from government, for the most part. We've got a lot of policy people, but we have no technologists, even though technology is such a big part of our lives. It's just amazing, because even these big Silicon Valley companies, the masters of the universe or whatever, haven't engaged with Washington until recently. They're still playing catch-up.

It's hard to argue with the government. Remember, they are they run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, so they must know a thing or two about satisfying women.