Patrick Leahy Quotes

Can the public business be thus transacted and in secret?

I believe that the American People have a right to know what was done in their name..

If something is being done on a secret basis in national security, that's a great reason for elected officials to not talk about it. And that's a great way to shirk accountability for it with the public.

All officers of the Intelligence Community, and especially its most senior officer, must conduct themselves in a manner that earns and retains the public trust. The American people are uncomfortable with government activities that do not take place in the open, subject to public scrutiny and review.

Americans have a right to know what is being done in their name…. These cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions.

It is hard to imagine having a government more secretive than the United States. Virtually everything that government does, of any significance, is conducted behind an extreme wall of secrecy. The very few leaks that we’ve had over the last decade are basically the only ways that we’ve had to learn what our government is doing.

WikiLeaks is what happens when the entire U.S. government is forced to go through a full-body scanner.

There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year.

It is up to the government to keep the government's secrets.

I don't think that any government has a right to subvert the truth or to cover up the truth, and all I see WikiLeaks doing is exposing the truth.

Many state parole boards claim exemptions from state sunshine laws that would be unthinkable for other government officials.

Why does the White House sometimes seem so determined to close the door on the people's right to know what their government is doing?

It’s hard to sometimes get information out of the government. It’s really hard. You can’t do it without asking tough questions.

You can’t have Congressional hearings on classified matters.

The CIA claims that secrecy is necessary to hide what it's doing from enemies of the United States ... the real reason for secrecy is to hide what the CIA is doing from the American people.

Public disclosure is one of the great disinfectants ever invented.

Secrecy in government, in the public mind, becomes synonymous with deception in government.

I find it extremely difficult to argue against telling the people of the United States how much we intend to spend on the aggregate for intelligence purposes.

The present trend toward Government secrecy could end in a dictatorship. The more information there is made available, the greater will be the nation’s security.

I have no disposition to withhold any information which the duty of my station will permit, or the public good shall require to be disclosed: and in fact, all the Papers affecting the negotiation with Great Britain were laid before the Senate, when the Treaty itself was communicated for their consideration and advice

National security is the fig leaf against freedom of information.

… a guarantee of public access to government information is indispensable in the long run for any democratic society.... if officials make public only what they want citizens to know, then publicity becomes a sham and accountability meaningless.

It's a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy.

The public must know about the general outlines of surveillance activities in order to evaluate whether the government is achieving the appropriate balance between privacy and security.

Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government