P. Chidambaram Quotes

Governmental officials -- including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law --have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law. The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities

I am not responsible to the Senate and will not submit my actions to them.

In a sense, the police power is but another name for the power of government.

Independence sounds good in theory, but in practice, it is mutually exclusive with accountability. The more independence you give a prosecutor, the less you make that prosecutor accountable to the public and regular checks and balances.

The founders had a strong distrust for centralized power in a federal government. So they created a government with checks and balances. This was to prevent any branch of the government from becoming too powerful.

It was not the president's responsibility to run a law enforcement operation. It was ours.

A decent government with an effective, but not gratuitously violent, police force and a fair court system are essential. This deters and incapacitates psychopaths, bullies and hotheads - and if it earns the confidence of the people, they don't have to become violent in self-defence.

The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.

The White House alone cannot hold its opponents accountable.

It is the President upon whom the Constitution devolves, as head of the executive department, the duty to see that the laws be faithfully executed; but as he cannot execute them in person, he is allowed to select his agents, and is made responsible for their acts within just limits. So complete is the presumed delegation of authority in the relation of a head of department to a President, that the Supreme Court of the United States have decided that an order made by a head of department is presumed to be made by the President himself.

We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

I decline submitting my officials rights and powers to the determination of a coordinate department, usurping a jurisdiction unprecedented in the history of our country, and fraught with the greatest danger to our institutions. I shall deem it my imperative duty to repel, with all of the force vested in this department, any infringement upon my rights and powers.

When the President of the United States breaks the law he must be held accountable. That is why I am introducing today a resolution to censure George W. Bush…. At the very heart of our constitution is the assumption that some members of the government will do wrong, and when they do, others in the government must do right…. The President has broken the law. Congress must act…. Our job is not to stand up and cheer when the President breaks the law.

To strengthen a weak government, we must reduce its power.

The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it.

Government is like fire. If it is kept within bounds and under the control of the people, it contributes to the welfare of all. But if it gets out of place, it gets too big and out of control, it destroys the happiness and even the lives of the people.

The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times … the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a law-maker.

The president is not required to enforce all laws equally or commit the same resources to them.

The President cannot refuse to enforce a law simply because he does not like it.

Once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by democratic assemblies.

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren

The duty imposed upon him [the president] to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.' The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose; and without it, be the form of government whatever it may, it will be utterly worthless for offence or defense; for the redress of grievances or the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people.

When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state ... this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.

If I were in the government I would have a brigade of policemen assigned to keeping an eye on people who paint landscapes outdoors. Oh, I wouldn't want anyone killed. I'd be satisfied with just a little buckshot to begin with.

The authority of the Supreme Court must not be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.