Top 35 Patriot Act Quotes

For too long, opponents of the PATRIOT Act have transformed this law into a grossly distorted caricature that bears no relation to the legislation itself.

The ‘Patriot Act,’ ‘Enhancing domestic security,’ and ‘Protect America’ all sound great – until you realize that they’re catch phrases for programs that contain roving wire taps without a warrant and the collection and sale of your personal information to the U.S. government.

Nearly 75,000 Demand Progress members have urged Congress to fix the Patriot Act.

Every American, regardless of their background, has the right to live free of unwarranted government intrusion. Repealing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act will reign in this gross abuse of power and restore to everyone our basic Constitutional rights.

I will not counter the insanity of the PATRIOT Act with an overblown fear of my rights being taken away.

The Patriot Act is ludicrous. Terrorists have proved that they are interested in total genocide, not subtle little hacks of the U.S. infrastructure, yet the government wants a blank search warrant to spy and snoop on everyone’s communications.

The Patriot Act, passed overwhelmingly but hastily after 9/11, allows the FBI to obtain telecommunication, financial, and credit records without a court order.

I’m a Democrat for the reinforcement of the Patriot Act. It’s not strong enough.

While the debate on the Patriot Act is far from over, it is important that all Americans continue in this dialogue and work together to ensure greater security for our nation.

No one in their right mind can say to me with a straight face that the Patriot Act has not aggregated the Fourth Amendment.

Decisive action has been taken on the home front with passage of the USA Patriot Act, which has strengthened the hand of law enforcement agencies to stop terrorists before they can act.

Since 9/11, the U.S.A. Patriot Act has torn down the invisible wall that was perceived as preventing the FBI and CIA from sharing information.

Since its enactment in the weeks following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the tools in the Patriot Act have been used by law enforcement to stop more than 400 terrorist threats to our families and communities.

NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty.

You’d think after 8 years of things called ‘The Patriot Act’ and ‘No Child Left Behind’ they would know that we have figured out the ‘Call it what it ain’t’ PR ploy by now, but… um… no.

Since 2001, the Patriot Act has provided the means to detect and disrupt terrorist threats against the U.S. Prior to enactment of the law, major legal barriers prevented intelligence, national defense, and law enforcement agencies from working together and sharing information.

I was a federal prosecutor when we exercised powers under the Patriot Act or under the FISA court.

Sherrod Brown, in the House, was one of 66 members of the House to vote against the Patriot Act, and he continues to vote against the Patriot Act, to deny our law enforcement the tools they need to go against terror.

Today it is becoming harder to speak out, with the inception of the Patriot Act, the president has legislated free speech to be a crime.

The original PATRIOT Act greatly increased our nation’s ability to share intelligence information, made better use of technology, and provided terrorism investigators tools that have long been available in cases involving illegal drugs and organized crime.

We are expected to believe that anyone who objects to the Department of Homeland Security or the USA Patriot Act is a terrorist, and that the only way to preserve our freedom is to hand it over to the government for safekeeping.

I call it the ‘House of Reprehensibles.’ We don’t have any real political resistance to this growth of the domestic state across the board. So I’m much more focused on that than on the Patriot Act, which is a real effort, however inept, to deal with a real problem.

Thanks in part to the Patriot Act, the federal government has been able to demand some details of your online activities from service providers – and not to tell you about it.

I thought it was a joke at first, but the president did, in fact, authorize an autopen to sign the Patriot Act extension into law. Consider the dangerous precedent this sets. Any number of circumstances could arise in the future where the public could question whether or not the president authorized the use of an autopen.

The Patriot Act allows and provides a basis for an exchange of information.

The Patriot Act removed major legal barriers that prevented the law enforcement, intelligence, and national defense communities from talking and coordinating their work to protect the American people and our national security.

In the last four years under the Patriot Act, we have seen a great increase in the ability of law enforcement officials to investigate and track terrorists.

Prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, it was very difficult – often impossible – for us to share information with the Central Intelligence Agency, with NSA, with the other intelligence agencies, and likewise, for them to share information with us.

Since we enacted the PATRIOT Act almost three years ago, there has been tremendous public debate about its breadth and implications on due process and privacy.

The Patriot Act addresses various subjects. Some sections are beneficial and enhance our national security.

I would have never signed the Patriot Act. I would have never signed the National Defense Authorization Act allowing for arrests and detainment of you and me as U.S. citizens without being charged.

I think it’s dawning on some Democrats that obstructing the Patriot Act, like they’ve been obstructing everything else, is bad for them politically.

The Patriot Act unleashed the FBI to search your email, travel and credit records without even a suspicion of wrongdoing.

In a country where Americans sense, quite genuinely, that their freedoms have been taken away by the government – as in the U.S. Patriot Act, as in NSA surveillance – people feel powerless.

How will we defend ourselves if the Patriot Act expires? Well, perhaps we could just rely on the Constitution and demonstrate exactly how traditional judicial warrants can gather all the info we need – and how bulk collection really hasn’t worked.