Orwell Would Recognise Newt

"We need to get ahead of the curve rather than wait until we actually literally lose a city, which I think could literally happen in the next decade if we're unfortunate.  We now should be impaneling people to look seriously at a level of supervision that we would never dream of if it weren't for the scale of the threat.

And, my prediction to you is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.

This is a serious problem that will lead to a serious debate about the first amendment, but I think that the national security threat of losing an American city to a nuclear weapon, or losing several million Americans to a biological attack is so real that we need to proactively, now, develop the appropriate rules of engagement."

- Newt Gingrich, one of the 71 co-sponsors of the Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987 a/k/a the Fairness Doctrine, which was defeated in the Senate, 27 November 2006

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. 

- Benjamin Franklin