James Comey Quotes

A lot of terrorists fled out of Afghanistan.

There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those who’ve been hacked by the Chinese, and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked by the Chinese.

ISIL’s widespread reach through the Internet and social media is most concerning, as the group has proven dangerously competent at employing such tools for its nefarious strategy. ISIL uses high-quality, traditional media platforms as well as widespread social media campaigns to propagate its extremist ideology.

An element of virtually every national security threat and crime problem the FBI faces is cyber-based or facilitated. We face sophisticated cyber threats from state-sponsored hackers, hackers for hire, organized cyber syndicates, and terrorists.

There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America.

The benefits of our increasingly digital lives have been accompanied by new dangers, and we have been forced to consider how criminals and terrorists might use advances in technology to their advantage.

The FBI continues to work with tribes through the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 to help tribal governments better address the unique public safety challenges and disproportionately high rates of violence and victimization in many tribal communities.

When someone sends you an email, they are knocking on your door. And when you open the attachment, without looking through the peephole to see who it is, you just opened the door and let a stranger into your life, where everything you care about is.

Terrorists, in ungoverned spaces, disseminate poisonous propaganda and training materials to attract troubled souls around the world to their cause.

The destructive malware attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) in late 2014 was an unprecedented cyber event for the United States in its scope, destructiveness, and economic implications. The FBI responded to this attack with an investigation that was groundbreaking in its scope and collaboration.

I know there are other Elton Simpsons out there. But I also know there are Elton Simpsons out there I cannot see.

The fact of the matter is that the United States faces real threats from criminals, terrorists, spies, and malicious cyber actors.

Folks are wandering around that proverbial parking lot of the Internet all day long, without giving it a thought to whose attachments they’re opening, what sites they’re visiting. And that makes it easy for the bad guys.

There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime: the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘What are you doing here?’

To accomplish its mission, the FBI relies heavily upon its law enforcement and intelligence partners around the nation and around the globe. By combining our resources and our collective expertise, we are able to investigate national security threats that cross both geographical and jurisdictional boundaries.

Serious debates are taking place about how law enforcement personnel relate to the communities they serve, about the appropriate use of force.

After years of police work, officers often can’t help but be influenced by the cynicism they feel.

We don’t want to put people in jail unless we prove that they knew they were doing something they shouldn’t do.

We all, white and black, carry various biases around with us.

We’ve investigated Chattanooga as a terror attack from the beginning.

As Director of the FBI, I am sworn to ensure that my special agents have what they need to protect themselves and the citizens of this country, and that they are trained to properly use and properly deploy that equipment in the right times and places.

I believe that Americans should be deeply skeptical of government power. You cannot trust people in power. The founders knew that. That’s why they divided power among three branches, to set interest against interest.

The Internet offers the ability for people to consume poison and radicalize entirely in private, either through a device they’re holding in their hands or inside their house.

Unfortunately, in places like Ferguson, in New York City and in some communities across this nation, there is a disconnect between police agencies and the citizens they serve, predominately in communities of color.

There are those who’ve been hacked by the Chinese and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked by the Chinese.

The need for reflection and restraint of power is what led Louis Freeh to order that all new agent classes visit the Holocaust Museum here in Washington so they could see and feel and hear in a palpable way the consequences of abuse of power on a massive, almost unimaginable scale.

Public corruption is the FBI’s top criminal priority. The threat – which involves the corruption of local, state, and federally elected, appointed, or contracted officials – strikes at the heart of government, eroding public confidence and undermining the strength of our democracy.

For me, law school was a time of joy and hope. Joy in learning my way around the law – learning how to orbit a problem and to ask myself hard questions and to be asked hard questions. Hope that I could be of some use, to be part of the greater good – to make the world a little bit better.

The spine of the FBI is the rule of law. The spine of the FBI is a commitment to doing the right thing, in the right way, while protecting civil liberties.

It’s not about the stuff. The issue is how we use that stuff and how do we train people to use that stuff. Do we use that stuff to confront people who are protesting in a community? Do we use a sniper rifle to see closer in a crowd? That’s where it breaks down.

We have built as a government something called the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, NCIJTF, where 19 federal agencies sit together and divide up the work. See the threat, see the challenge, divide it up and share information.

My wife Patrice, in addition to being enormously supportive, has taught me a lot about life. She might argue it’s because I have so much to learn. One of the most important things I’ve learned is the art of listening.

I was born into an Irish Catholic family in the New York area in this great, wonderful, and safe country, but the Holocaust has always haunted me, and it has long stood as a stumbling block to faith. How could such a thing be? How is that consistent with the concept of a loving God?

We have perpetrated a myth in our society that being brave means not being afraid, but that’s wrong.

What makes the bravery of the men and women of the FBI so special is that they know exactly what they’re in for. They spend weeks and weeks in an academy learning just how hard and dangerous this work is. Then they raise their right hands and take an oath and do that work anyway.

The threat that ISIL presents and poses to the United States is very different in kind, in type and degree than al Qaeda. ISIL is not your parents’ al Qaeda. It’s a very different model.

Hate crimes impact not just individuals but entire communities. When a family is attacked because of the color of their skin, it’s not just the family that feels violated, but every resident of that neighborhood.

The private sector is the key player in cyber security. Private sector companies are the primary victims of cyber intrusions. And they also possess the information, the expertise, and the knowledge to address cyber intrusions and cyber crime in general.

WhatsApp has over a billion customers, and they are overwhelmingly good people. But in that billion customers are terrorists and criminals… It’s a huge feature of terrorist tradecraft.

America isn’t easy. America takes work.

The people of the FBI are sworn to protect both security and liberty. It isn’t a question of conflict. We must care deeply about protecting liberty through due process of law, while also safeguarding the citizens we serve – in every investigation.

People view the police not as allies, but as antagonists, and think of them not with respect or gratitude, but with suspicion and distrust.

At some point, there is going to be a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we’ve never seen before.

Technology has forever changed the world we live in. We’re online, in one way or another, all day long. Our phones and computers have become reflections of our personalities, our interests, and our identities. They hold much that is important to us.

We in the FBI have created a malware repository and analysis tool known as the Binary Analysis Characterization and Storage System, or BACSS, which provides near real-time investigative information. BACSS helps us link malware in different jurisdictions and paint a picture of cyber threats worldwide.

Privacy is tremendously important. I believe the American people, and all people, should be skeptical of government power, should ask hard questions: What is the authority? What is the oversight? That’s the way it ought to be.

I worry a bit about the unknowns when it comes to travelers to the war zones in Syria and Iraq. Who don’t I see? And I worry about the people who may be in their basements radicalizing that I can’t see.

We often speak of domestic terrorism and hate crimes in the same breath, and there is a fine line between the two, and certainly overlap in some cases.

FBI Miami is one of the top five offices. Not only are they responsible for all the work that goes on here in South Florida, but they are one of my international offices, so they cover kidnappings or counterintelligence matters or counterterrorism matters in the whole hemisphere.

Each FBI employee understands that to defeat the key threats facing our nation, we must constantly strive to be more efficient and more effective. Just as our adversaries continue to evolve, so, too, must the FBI.

I have trouble applying the ‘whistle-blower’ label to someone who just disagrees with the way our country is structured and operates.

Cybercrime is becoming everything in crime. Again, because people have connected their entire lives to the Internet, that’s where those who want to steal money or hurt kids or defraud go. So it’s an epidemic for reasons that make sense.

The threat that ISIL presents and poses to the United States is very different in kind, in type and degree than al Qaeda.

Our obligation is to refuse to let bad win, to refuse to let evil hold the field.

The FBI is engaged in a myriad of efforts to combat cyber threats, from efforts focused on threat identification and sharing inside and outside of government, to our internal emphasis on developing and retaining new talent and changing the way we operate to evolve with the cyber threat.