Quotables

‘Google has finally admitted they don’t respect privacy.’

John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project director, on a court motion filed by Google that quoted a 1979 ruling that “a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.” According to Google, this means “people with web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS provider in the course of delivery.”

‘It’s just a constant reminder of the terrible disaster. When I walk by it every morning, my heart aches.’

Kesennuma, Japan, resident Yoshimi Abe on a marooned fishing vessel that has become a powerful symbol of the 2011 tsunami that left 18,000 dead or missing in Japan. Officials had considered preserving the boat as a monument, but residents of Kesennuma in August voted to scrap the boat.

‘If it’s already working, why, why take it away? If that was possible in Chicago, maybe our daughter would still be alive.’

Nathaniel Pendleton, father of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old girl who was fatally shot in a Chicago park a week after singing in President Obama’s inauguration, on the controversial “stop-question-and-frisk” policy of New York police.

‘All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.’

Atheist Richard Dawkins, pointing out that all the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel prices than the faculty at Trinity-Cambridge, in a tweet that sparked a Twitter uproar. The tweet may be in part a response to criticism Dawkins has received in recent years for attacking Christianity but never having anything bad to say about Islam.

‘I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I’m sorry that they hurt the United States. Unfortunately, I can’t go back and change things.’

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, at his sentencing hearing. On Aug. 21 a judge sentenced him to 35 years in prison for leaking classified information.