#encroachment

We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government." [Dissenting, Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 341 (1966)] ↗

— William O. Douglas

#freedom #government #privacy #surveillance #age

These examples and many others demonstrate an alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of man's life at will." [Dissenting, Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 343 (1966)] ↗

— William O. Douglas

#encroachment #freedom #government #liberty #privacy

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that — either now or in the uncertain future — patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable." [The Eternal Value of Privacy, May 18, 2006] ↗

— Bruce Schneier

#freedom #individuality #liberty #observation #privacy

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." [Olmstead v. U.S. (1928)] ↗

— Louis D. Brandeis

#encroachment #freedom #government #liberty #policy

To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world. ↗

— Anthony Burgess

#privacy #solitude #solitude

But I must think that an address to his majesty to remove one of his servants, without so much as alleging any particular crime against him, is one of the greatest encroachments that was ever made upon the prerogatives of the crown. ↗

— Robert Walpole

#against #alleging #any #crime #crown

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. ↗

— James Madison

#encroachments #freedom #gradual #i #i believe

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty. ↗

— James Madison

#best #crafty #dangerous #encroachments #every

Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#artists #arts #careers #creativity #empowerment

Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#dignity #double-standards #empowerment #encroachment #feminism