George Carlin Quotes

When you're told to go brief a United States senator on a covert operation, you go do it. And you trust the information isn't going to leak.

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

In the '60s - and right up to the present day - the identity of a member of the British Secret Services was and is, quite rightly, a state secret. To divulge it is a crime. The Services may choose to leak a name when it pleases them.

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

I am unable to tell a quarter of a billion Americans what we are doing on their behalf, because if I did, it would become the table of contents of the training manual of the enemy.

As ever, I caveat with saying that I don't write about the factual content of my C.I.A. experience. Ever. People who are working hard to save lots of lives depend on me to keep my mouth shut.

Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone.

In intelligence work, there are limits to the amount of information one can share. Confidentiality is essential.

I will not, nor will I ever, publicly divulge sensitive intelligence sources and methods. For when that happens, our national security is endangered and lives can be lost.

Well, it's a - I don't want to disappoint you, but it's a time worn tradition of Australian Governments over many years not to get into any discussion about that aspect of intelligence matters.

And I understand that, I testified in closed hearings over eight years because there are intelligence matters, there are sensitive matters that should not be held in a public hearing.

When people ask me if I have worked for the C.I.A., I often answer: what good to you is my answer? Because if I did, I might not say so.

The National Security Agency plays so highly specialized a role in the defense and security of the United States that an outsider can actually describe its activities. They are guarded not only from the public but from other government agencies as well. The Civil Service Commission, which audits all government positions, is not allowed to know what NSA employees do.

The law does not distinguish terribly well between real secrets and sort-of secrets, especially in an age when the instinct to stamp “classified” runs rampant.

Secrecy is as essential to Intelligence as vestments to a Mass, or darkness to a spiritualist seance, and must at all costs be maintained, quite irrespective of whether or not it serves any purpose.

We should certainly declassify any information that we know that the enemy knows. At that point it is only the American people who are in the dark.

The United States is the only country in the world that has ever released the operations files of its intelligence agency.

The attached paper is sensitive, particularly if its existence were to leak. It has not been given, and will not be given to any other official of the government. Title: Implications of an Unfavorable Outcome in Vietnam.

Some things simply cannot leak. And if they do leak, the government has to do something about it.

I was working for the CIA and prohibited from speaking publicly.

Everybody has a hacking capability. And probably every intelligence service is hacking in the territory of other countries. But who exactly does what? That would be a very sensitive piece of information. But it's very difficult to communicate about it. Because nobody wants to admit the scope of what they're doing.

Most people don't know what goes on in the intelligence services. Certainly I had very little idea what went on in GCHQ. For me it was a job, a chance to use my languages.

The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged-All that remains for me to add, is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue.

That’s the thing about spies. Most of the secrets we keep are from each other.

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage.