Barack Obama Quotes

We do have to balance this issue of privacy and security. Those who pretend that there's no balance that has to be struck and think we can take a 100-percent absolutist approach to protecting privacy don't recognize that governments are going to be under an enormous burden to prevent the kinds of terrorist acts that not only harm individuals, but also can distort our society and our politics in very dangerous ways.

Opponents of civil liberties contend the NSA data collection has made our country more safe, but even the most vocal defenders of the program have failed to identify a single thwarted plot.

We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties.

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.

The Fourth Amendment is on life support and the chief agent of that is the National Security Agency.

I'm very grateful that Barack Obama as president very much put protection of privacy on the agenda today, due to the fact of Islamist terrorism all over the world.

You can gesture at the transnational problem of Islamist terrorism all you like, but it's just hot air unless you invest in proper security on the ground in your own country, with the right safeguards to civil liberties.

Those who are troubled by our existing programs are not interested in repeating the tragedy of 9-11. And those who defend these programs are not dismissive of civil liberties. The challenge is getting the details right and that is not simple.

The political solutions proposed against encryption are not going to work against terrorism.

We have to argue forcefully and demand that the government recognise that these programmes do not prevent - mass surveillance does not prevent acts of terrorism.

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.

Critics have stepped up their attacks on the President for authorizing the National Security Agency to listen to international communications of known al Qaeda members or affiliated terrorists during a time of war. The American people expect their leaders to stay a step ahead of the enemy, and the National Security Agency authorization is a critical tool in the War on Terror that saves lives and protects civil liberties at the same time.

I do think we lost some of the focus on the attacks in San Bernardino and focused on a plan that isn't really a plan and is never going to happen.

To protect us from terrorism, we must have the best, absolutely the best gathering of intelligence anywhere in the world.

Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us?

This is... one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration. The more successful they’ve been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we’re in danger... it’s almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us.

When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry.

I believe only a free society can ever be truly secure. The goal should be to make terrorists feel threatened, not the American people.

The idea now that we're going to fight terrorism through gun control I think is just utterly fatuous.

Preventing terrorist attacks is of the highest important, but trashing the Constitution is not the right way to do it.

I think all members of Congress are very concerned about the fact that, while we want to see our law enforcement agencies have every means they can possibly have to combat terrorism, we've got to remember that we've had a Constitution in place for 225 years, and it has served us well.

We must protect the very things that make America so special - most certainly including our civil liberties. But we cannot do so without strong national security and a thoughtful and informed discourse.

I think the American people believe in stopping and preventing terrorism pretty much at any cost.

America will be far safer if we reduce the chances of a terrorist attack in one of our cities than if we diminish the civil liberties of our own people.

There is no priority higher than the prevention of terrorism.