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But the Congress has made the determination that certain kinds of information can be protected even though the American people may want to have access to information.

The American people must be willing to give up a degree of personal privacy in exchange for safety and security.

Well that's true, and what is actually happening now is that there are accusations that those records contain conspiratorial information that has been concealed from the American people and that is a dangerous situation that just cannot be tolerated.

We must protect the very things that make America so special - most certainly including our civil liberties. But we cannot do so without strong national security and a thoughtful and informed discourse.

The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.

If we had failed to pursue the facts as far as they led, we would have denied the public any knowledge of an unprecedented scheme of political surveillance and sabotage.

We have to protect the rights of the American people.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.

Government, which does not and did not grant us our rights, must not now seek to deny them by using fear as its justification.