Top 75 Quotes & Sayings by Benjamin Wittes - Page 2

Secret courts require great faith that the Justice Department - and future Justice Departments - will act with integrity.

I was much less offended than others were by the CIA's interrogations in the years after September 11.

I defend non-criminal detention.

I'm positively enthusiastic about American surveillance policies.

Back when the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology were one great intellectual hodgepodge, proving the existence of God was a relatively commonplace exercise. To the modern mind, however, science and religion talk past each other.

I've got no problem with drone strikes.

Al-Qaida is a cult of martyrdom.

As a general matter, if the president wants to withdraw from a treaty, he simply gets to do that. And that's part of the powers of the office.

There is nothing normal about removing the FBI director, as a general matter. It's an extraordinary measure. This is an office that is typically served for a term of years, 10 years, to be precise.

When somebody promises to do something, you have to think about whether that's something that you would be willing to see happen because the powers are simply too vast.

Recommended additon to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights: "A right to not have your data rise up and attack you."

You know, you don't get to survive that long without making some compromises.

Asking journalists to denounce leaks because of their deleterious effects on the functioning of government is as hopeless as asking an airline to denounce jet fuel because of its impact on the environment.

Trump fired Jim Comey because the most dangerous thing in the world, if you are Donald Trump, is a person who tells the truth, is dogged, you can't control, and who is as committed as Comey is to the institutional independence of an organization that has the power to investigate you.

Comey really spent an enormous amount of energy in the period in which both he and Trump were in office trying to protect the FBI from political interference from the White House.