Political Quotes

“Well, here is my problem with that provision, and it is twofold. First of all, there is the proverbial elephant's nose under the tent theory, that this is the beginning of opening other things down the road. I think that in this world in which we operate, this cloak-and-dagger world of the intelligence community--and we don't often like to think about the fact that it is necessary in modern times, but it is more necessary today than ever before because of the enemy we face--I think there is a real danger in beginning to open any of those opinions. The second part of it is kind of tied to that as well. As I said earlier, these folks we are dealing with are very smart individuals. These bad guys carry laptops, they communicate with encrypted messages that we have to try to pick up on with the right kinds of authorizations that the FISA Court gives us and do our best to figure out what they are doing in advance of them taking any action. And while we may not think about a provision in an opinion coming out of the FISA Court being a tipoff to bad guys about what we are doing or, more significantly, what they are doing that is alerting us, you better believe those guys are going to be examining every one of these opinions that we make public, and they are going to be reviewing those opinions, and they are going to, at some point in time, pick up on some small piece of information that is going to give them a shortcut next time they plan an attack against America or Americans.…”