Curt Weldon Quotes

We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.

I'm very interested in soldier recovery projects and in Bradley Manning's story, the army intelligence officer who's being held as a detainee and is going to trial for crimes of treason.

Saving Edward Snowden from prison is one of WikiLeaks' achievements of which I am most proud.

The days of the Pentagon Papers debates seem long past, when a sudden transparency yielded insight into fights over war and peace and freedom and security; the transparency afforded by Twitter and Facebook yields insights that extend no further than a lawmaker's boundless narcissism and a culture's pitiless prurience.

I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I'm more optimistic than pessimistic.

It is crazy to have Judith Miller in jail.

In hindsight, Watergate was a curse as well as a blessing for American journalism. The courageous reporting of the 'Post' and the 'New York Times' - coupled with the favourable Supreme Court rulings on publication of the Pentagon Papers - were landmarks for the interpretation of First Amendment rights and the freedom of the press.

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.

Did anyone in the White House or the N.S.A or the C.I.A. consider flying to Hong Kong and treating Mr. Snowden like a human being, offering him a chance to testify before Congress and a fair trial?

In the United States, whatever you may think of Julian Assange, even people who are not necessarily big fans of his are very concerned about the way in which the United States government and some companies have handled Wikileaks.

Whistle-blowing and publishing should not be seen as a crime, and certainly not as terrorism.

I do have concerns about the current efforts to restructure our nation's intelligence community.

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.

Truth telling is not compatible with the defence of the realm.

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.

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.

One person should be in charge of the intelligence community and [making] sure that person is not the secretary of Defense

You really can’t have a democracy if the government knows the content of every conversation between journalists and their sources. You can’t have a democracy with that kind of surveillance going on.

National security is the fig leaf against freedom of information.

Homeland security intelligence done the wrong way will give us thought police.

Intelligence is a sacred cow. We’ve done nothing since we’ve been here about it. The CIA isn’t worth a damn.

Our agency (the Central Intelligence Agency) is the last refuge of organizational privacy available to the U. S. Government.

So far as the Constitution goes .. the press is free to do battle against secrecy and deception in government. But the press cannot expect from the Constitution that they will succeed…. The Constitution itself is neither a Freedom of Information Act or an Official Secrets Act.

We would not have a national discussion without the actions of Edward Snowden. Democracy is at work because of Edward Snowden.

To Any Officer or Employee of the Government: Please tell Mr. Lincoln Steffens anything whatever about the government that you know (not incompatible with the public interest) and provided only that you tell him the truth—no matter what it might be—I will see to it that you are not hurt. T. Roosevelt.