Quotes About Oversight

What I argue is that if I'm going to be held accountable for my actions that I should be allowed to record... my actions. Especially if somebody else is keeping a record of my actions.

Devlet gerekli bir belad?r. Devletin güç yetkileri gere?inden fazla olmamal?d?r.

Who judges the judge who judges wrong?

Why has it seemed that the only way to protect the environment is with heavy-handed government regulation?

President is a curious term for the American head of state, because "presiding" in any meaningful sense is the one thing the president of the United States does not do.

His only mistake was not realizing there was a second car. There's always a second car. Except when there's not.

former NSA director Michael Hayden: "Give me the box you will allow me to operate in. I'm going to play to the very edges of that box. . . . You, the American people, through your elected representatives, give me the field of play and I will play very aggressively in it.

You can think of the difference between tactical and strategic oversight as the difference between doing things right and doing the right things. Both are required.

Even Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, the person who wrote the USA PATRIOT Act, was surprised when he learned that the NSA used it as a legal justification for collecting mass-surveillance data on Americans. "It's like scooping up the entire ocean to guarantee you catch a fish," he said.

More members of Congress must commit to meaningful NSA reform. We need comprehensive strategic oversight by independent government agencies, based on full transparency. We need meaningful rules for minimizing data gathered and stored about Americans, rules that require NSA to delete data to which it should not have access.

In the 1970s, the Church Committee investigated intelligence gathering by the NSA, CIA, and FBI. It was able to reform these agencies only after extensive research and discovery. We need a similar committee now. We need to convince President Obama to adopt the recommendations of his own NSA review group. And we need to give the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board real investigative powers.

A wise and salutary neglect.

Your master plan has holes big enough to drive a truck through.

The promise I've tried to honor my entire career, that the rule of law and the design of the founders, right, the oversight of courts and the oversight of Congress will be at the heart of what the FBI does.

If you go back and look at the first issue of 'Indestructible Hulk,' if you have a sharp eye, you'll catch something that I totally forgot to put in there. In my horror, I only realized after the fact that I took totally for granted that everyone in the world knows what triggers the transformation.

Before we give you billions more, we want to know what you've done with the trillion you've got.

If a trip is worth taking, members of Congress should be prepared to justify paying for it out of their office accounts.

I don't think the Port Authority does a good enough job in anything that they do, quite honestly, but clearly in the area of security. Those cops get paid more than N.Y.P.D. cops, and quite honestly - I know I'm going to get into trouble for saying this - they're nothing more than mall cops.

If troubled companies want to explain away 2008 as a 'black swan,' then someone should take responsibility for creating the oil slick that seems to have tarred the entire flock!

The NICS database has holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through.

I'm the one who gets called up about a problem. I'm the one who gets called up about the street lighting and the abandoned car. I'm the one who gets blamed if the police don't arrive. I'm the one they blame if a city truck is broken down.

Party and ideology routinely trump institutional interests and responsibilities. Regular order - the set of rules, norms and traditions designed to ensure a fair and transparent process - was the first casualty. The results: No serious deliberation. No meaningful oversight of the executive. A culture of corruption.

Everybody wants to manage me; management is a touchy situation.

The problem - when you cast your net that wide - is you inevitably catch something you don't want to catch.