Charles Kennedy Quotes

How to strike the right balance between our privacy and our expectation that the state will protect us and facilitate our freedom is one of the most difficult challenges facing us all.

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

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.

How can you be conservative and justify wiretapping people without a warrant? We're supposed to be the party of personal freedom and civil liberties.

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

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story.

We are expected to believe that anyone who objects to the Department of Homeland Security or the USA Patriot Act is a terrorist, and that the only way to preserve our freedom is to hand it over to the government for safekeeping.

One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It ain't.

I will not counter the insanity of the PATRIOT Act with an overblown fear of my rights being taken away.

I believe the Patriot Act strikes the right balance needed to protect our freedom and security.

The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the constitution than protect our nation’s security.

I do not believe the government has the right to investigate somebody's private life.

Our privacy, our rights as citizens - these are ideals that we Americans hold very dear.

Certainly I support the Constitution, and I respect people's privacy, but I also think we need to err on the side of protecting us.

I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights.

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

Censorship does not interfere with the constitutional rights of every American to sit alone in a dark room in the nude and cuss.

I do think that our freedoms are at risk.

Unwarranted search and seizure by the government officials was unacceptable to the American revolutionaries. Shouldn't it be unacceptable in the digital age, too?

Every American, regardless of their background, has the right to live free of unwarranted government intrusion. Repealing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act will reign in this gross abuse of power and restore to everyone our basic Constitutional rights.

While the debate on the Patriot Act is far from over, it is important that all Americans continue in this dialogue and work together to ensure greater security for our nation.

Privacy isn't negotiable. It's the right of every American.

Say what you will about Americans, but one thing they are not is passive. The Bush administration may have pushed through the Patriot Act weeks after 11 September, but, as the American public got to grips with how the law was affecting their individual rights, their protests grew loud and angry.

No one in their right mind can say to me with a straight face that the Patriot Act has not aggregated the Fourth Amendment.