Christopher Hitchens Quotes

Those who would give up their civil liberties for security deserve neither.

The sacrifice of our personal liberty for security is and will forever be a false choice.

Demanding domestic security in times of war invites carelessness in preserving civil liberties and the right of privacy. Frequently the people are only too anxious for their freedoms to be sacrificed on the altar of authoritarianism thought to be necessary to remain safe and secure.

Some members of Congress will claim that the federal government needs the power to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently. I would remind my colleagues that, in a constitutional republic, the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the jobs of government officials easier.

The Product of Freedom and Security is a constant (F X S = k). Giving up freedom for security is beginning to look naive.

Are you so afraid that you are willing to trade your freedom for security?

I do think that our freedoms are at risk.

Even though some in our government may claim that civil liberties must be compromised in order to protect the public, we must be wary of what we are giving up in the name of fighting terrorism.

How far are we to go in pursuit of greater security at the cost of essential liberties?

To bargain freedom for security is the devil's bargain. Having made the bargain, one enjoys neither freedom nor security.

If we take away all our privacy rights, we become our own terrorists.

Benjamin Franklin once said, 'A people who would trade liberty for security deserve neither.' I think we can have both. We can keep our liberties. We can have our security.

Millions of people have to restore liberty and have to understand the danger and personal risk they face in a police state.

[A new all-encompassing national identification system] contradicts some of our most sacrosanct American principles of personal liberty and expectations of privacy and is far in excess of what is needed to provide us with the security and protections we all want.

The more security we have, the less freedom there is; more freedom means less security. You can hardly enough of both at the same time.

The American people want to know that when they borrow a book from the library or buy a book, the government won't be looking over their shoulder. Everybody wants to fight terrorism, but we have to do it in away that protects American freedom.

The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of "freedom".

We can't simply scare people into giving up their rights, on the basis, oh, this protects us from terrorism.

I think it's important to recognize that you can't have 100 per cent security and also then have 100 per cent privacy and zero inconvenience.... In the abstract you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details then I think we've struck the right balance.

The new laws passed by Congress in the name of fighting terrorism pose a greater danger to the civil liberties of American citizens than to the operations of terrorists. Powers once assumed are never relinquished, just as bureaucracies, once created, never die.

How much liberty do with want to give up for a false sense of security?

I strongly believe that we as a nation can be both secure and free.

Americans need to understand the significance of having their civil liberties dismantled. It doesn't just affect terrorists and foreigners, it affects us all.

The government continues to erode our freedom.

The last thing the Department of Homeland Security is about is infringing on anybody's constitutionally protected rights.