Wayne LaPierre Quotes

There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack.

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.

We all want security …. But we don’t need to simplify the debate to such an extent that we simply say we have to give up our liberties.

Security is no replacement for liberty.

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.

We have less civil liberties than we had on 9/ 1 1 in some significant ways. But we are also, I believe, less safe as a result in many instances of the sacrifice in human rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law that (the Bush) administration has adopted.

Freedom without security portends chaos, perpetual anxiety and fear.

In the area of national security, I urge the swift passage of an anti-terrorism law that will protect rather than subvert, enhance rather than weaken, the rights and liberties that terrorism precisely threatens with extinction.

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

The issue of wiretapping raises the issue of the balance between human liberty and the requirements of national security. I would say that the weight should be on the side of human liberty and that if human liberty is ever to be infringed, the demonstration on the national security side must be overwhelming.

It doesn’t keep us safe and it doesn’t keep us free if we give up our liberties to the government.

I am ready to debate how we fight terrorism without giving up our liberty.

We do need to think about how we have security - everyone has a right to that - but we also need to think about how we maintain civil rights and personal freedom.

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

Liberty comes only after security.

Freedom is when one hears the bell at seven o'clock in the morning and knows it is the milkman and not the Gestapo.

I believe in limited government and the right of the individual to make choices and in a strong national defense and in freedom and liberty as being the right of every person on the face of the Earth.

This wholesale invasion of Americans’ and foreign citizens’ privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we’re trying to protect.

Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy.

I care a lot about privacy. I also care an awful lot about public safety. There continues to be a huge collision between those two things we care about.

Some in Washington say that you have to trade your liberty for security.

We have sold our birthright of freedom and justice for a mess of national security.

Government should work to insure the rights of the individual, not plot to take them away.

To be safe at the expense of the liberty of other people is a difficult equation.

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.