A Quote by Edward Snowden
The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to.
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An immigration violation should not give the government license to rip up the rule book. By restricting judicial oversight and blocking public scrutiny, the government has exercised virtually unchecked power over those it has detained.
It is a little bit difficult to talk about things that do involve classified matters in public. But I think the public needs to know that there are multiple oversight layers, including the FISA Court, congressional oversight, internal oversight within the FBI and intelligence community, that protects Americans from - under - their - their privacy rights while targeting terrorists and people who are trying to kill us.
It is only when there is the supervision and critical oversight from the people that the government will be in a position to do an even better job, and employees of government departments will be the true public servants of the people.
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency.
When governments go too far to punish people for actions that are dissent rather than a real threat to the nation, they risk delegitimizing not just their systems of justice, but the legitimacy of the government itself. Because when they bring political charges against people for acts that were clearly at least intended to work in the public interest, they deny them the opportunity to mount a public-interest defense.
Government is truly beginning to embrace the power of innovation for the people and by the people, the idea that if government collaborates openly with and unleashes the ingenuity of the public, it will get much more done, much faster and at much lower cost than if government acted alone.
Why does a woman carry a gun? Because, under our system, every citizen has the latitude to act in the absence of police; the latitude to act reasonably, to act immediately, to act in defense of self, to act in defense of another, to act with lethal force, to act with her acquired training and to act not in anger but to respond in purpose. To exercise the protections of that latitude in public policy, public interest and practical safety, all that is demanded of her is that she act reasonably under the circumstances.
No government can be trusted, that does not trust its own people with military-style arms of greater weight and power than those possessed by the central government itself.
Being here in Detroit, our public education in this city is - it's shocking. And the oversight of it and the oversight of the teachers and the funding is nonexistent, and the priority that's put on it is so low.
Privacy is tremendously important. I believe the American people, and all people, should be skeptical of government power, should ask hard questions: What is the authority? What is the oversight? That's the way it ought to be.
We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.
The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.
We can only restore faith in government if the state itself becomes an efficient, effective and transparent ally of the people. Bureaucratic inefficiencies, abuses of power and the misappropriation of public funds must end.
The federal government is doing less than it is lawfully entitled to do to protect New York City, and the City is less safe as a result.
I just like being a social experiment sometimes. I really should not be allowed in public. But I just go out into the public just to see people's reaction.
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