WASHINGTON – Following yet another vote that would have curtailed Americans’ constitutional rights without adequate due process, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday about the proper balance between security and liberty.

“Whenever government acts, it does so inevitably, unavoidably, and necessarily at the expense of individual freedom, liberty, and autonomy,” Lee said. “This doesn’t mean that every act by government is bad. Quite the contrary. We need government. We need it to protect us from those who would undermine our liberty, those who would interfere with it, those who would harm us personally, whether physically or in some other way.

“But just as it doesn’t mean that every act by government is bad, we should also not be too quick to leap to any conclusion that any and every act of government is good. We have to balance liberty, privacy, and autonomy with our corresponding needs for security and physical protection.”