Civil Liberties Quotes

Since 9/11, the Bush administration has used that tragic event as a justification to rip up our constitution and our civil liberties. And I honestly believe that one or two 9/11s, and martial law will be declared in our country and we're inching towards a police state.

In the defense of civil liberties there can be no exceptions, or there will soon be many.

Liberals say they are for civil liberties and personal freedom, but they continue to advocate government regulation of business, redistribution of wealth, and various forms of social engineering to manipulate human relationships and attitudes.

Christians should be among those who speak loudest in defense of civil liberties and the protection of the weak.

The commitment to civil liberty is going to be reasserted strongly. But the concept of liberty is under attack, and our definition of insecurity, security and threats will change fundamentally. The depth of the attack on liberty will be felt painfully.

I am determined to try to rebuild and renew this country in ways that will build community and level the playing field. To me, that means making certain that the fight to preserve our civil liberties is waged, making certain the fight against discrimination is waged, making certain that women have opportunity in this country.

When you're in this type of conflict, when you're at war, civil liberties are treated differently.

I'm just not sure I trust the federal government not to trample on civil liberties.

The issue of cyber-security, cyber-crime, and cyber-malfeasance has an impact on a whole range of issues, not the least of which is civil liberties, political activity, and so on and so forth.

...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals... I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose.

Superstition is an enemy to civil liberty.

The suppression of civil liberties is too many less a matter for horror than the curtailment of the freedom to profit.

Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.

Frankly, I don't think you should perform in a plaza where thousands of Cubans have been subjected to the death penalty, by firing squad, including three young black men in 2003. What is needed in Cuba is a concert in favor of democracy, civil liberties for the people, the freedom of political prisoners, free elections and the expulsion of dictatorial power.

Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare.

[If you understood the natural rights of mankind,] [y]ou would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that, and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.

I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society.

When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for.

I believe that successfully addressing our national security needs while protecting our basic freedoms and civil liberties requires continual Congressional oversight, and I will continue to work to assert the role of this body in carrying out this grave responsibility.

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

Liberals are stalwart defenders of civil liberties - provided we're only talking about criminals.

A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left.

In the 1880s, people all over the world looked to America for inspiration. Its very existence was proof that it was possible to have a relatively free and peaceful country. No income tax, no foreign wars, no welfare state, no intrusions on civil liberties.

Well, take the evolution of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It began as hackers' rights. Then it became general civil liberties of everybody - government stay away.

The privacy and dignity of our citizens is 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 life.

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

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.

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

The government should always be the one defending civil liberties.

At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.

Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.

Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.

I like Mitt Romney as a person. I think he's a dignified person. But I have no common ground on economics. He doesn't worry about the Federal Reserve. He doesn't worry about foreign policy. He doesn't talk about civil liberties, so I would have a hard time to expect him to ever invite me to campaign with him.

For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves.

There was no one left to speak for me.

I think we [Americans] are going to look back and realize that the civil liberties that we've given up in the name of security, the authority that we've given Democratic and Republican presidents, all have contributed to a fraying of the fabric of our democratic republic.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

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.

I spent my entire career trying to protect the Constitution, the civil rights and the civil liberties of American citizens and people who are here lawfully. I, as chair of this commission, would not be a party to any system that I felt was an unpardonable intrusion into the private lives of people. If I felt that what we are recommending would be such an intrusion I can assure you that recommendation would never have seen the light of day, not even as a pilot program.

Those concerns of a national character-such as air and water pollution that do not respect state boundaries, or the national transportation system, or efforts to safeguard your civil liberties-must, of course, be handled on the national level.

The Point, not unlike the Communist Chinese, the ACLU abhors individual religious freedom, and it supports only those civil liberties that fit its narrow political agenda.

Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.

The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.