Samuel Freeman Miller Quotes

There is no better illustration of that crisis than the fact that the president is openly violating our nation's laws by authorizing the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens.

Sometimes, the biggest sin you can commit in [Washington] DC is to tell the truth. This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton.

The Patriot Act is the most egregious piece of legislation to ever leave Congress since the Alien and Sedition Acts. John Ashcroft and every member of Congress who voted for it should be indicted.

Human experience long ago taught us that if we allow a man or group of men autocratic powers in government or church, that they use the powers to oppress and defraud the public..

Using flimsy evidence to spy on innocent citizens could very well be a crime.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

Before my tenure, people didn't seem to think that citizens had a right to limit the size of their government.

The Select Committee was designed to go after Hillary Clinton.

We are living in an era of transformation where we will all have to reckon with a number of revolutionary changes and challenges for the public sector. In the move towards globalization, the public is becoming more and more knowledgeable about their rights and requirements. As such, the need to revisit our traditional ways of offering public services is inescapable, if we want to ensure the establishment of a more caring public service.

The privacy and dignity of our citizens are being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen – a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life.

All governments abuse power. Every one of them. It's the duty of citizens to resist those abuses.

The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse

This commonwealth does upon the most deliberate reconsideration declare, that the said alien and sedition laws, are in their opinion, palpable violations of the said constitution

The biggest downside [for the President] of having the other party control a branch of the Congress is its ability to use investigations and subpoenas as anvils.

Power long entrusted either to single persons, or to bodies of men, generally increases itself so greatly as to become subversive of the intentions, and dangerous to the rights of those who delegated it.

There are, perhaps, few men who can for any great length of time enjoy office and power without being more or less under the influence of feelings unfavorable to the faithful discharge of their public duties. Their integrity may be proof against improper considerations immediately addressed to themselves, but they are apt to acquire a habit of looking with indifference upon the public interests and of tolerating conduct from which an unpracticed man would revolt. Office is considered as a species of property, and government rather as a means of promoting individual interests than as an instrument created solely for the service of the people.

Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. [...] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. [...] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

Public Congressional Investigation hearings are freak shows.

We are way overstepping bounds as federal legislators.

Spying on our citizens? That's just wrong.

If you abuse the public trust, we're going to find you, and and we're going to prosecute you.

Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.

The IRS has become morally corrupted by the enormous power which we in Congress have unwisely entrusted to it. Too often it acts like a Gestapo preying upon defenseless citizens.

Government power is always abused by seizing and perverting the law. And with few exceptions, government always determines what is law.

Two soldiers and a villain are enough to blow up the rights of the citizens.