Alvin Felzenberg Quotes

Oversight now is defined as going after political appointees.

Quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration; and even more important than legislation is the instruction and guidance in political affairs which the people might receive from a body which kept all national concerns suffused in a broad daylight of discussion .... The informing functions of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function. The argument is not only that a discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, that the only really self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration.

Although governments will also benefit from improved access to information, increased transparency will allow people at home and abroad to better observe and critique what governments do and to hold leaders accountable for their decisions. As a result, governments will find it harder to adopt strategies that require secrecy or violate international norms.

Thank God for our form of government. The media won't let there be any cover-up.

There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency.

We need more transparency and accountability in government so that people know how their money is being spent. That means putting budgets online, putting legislation online.

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.

Voters cannot hold officials responsible if they do not know what government is doing, or which parts of government are doing what.

We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

An urgent need exists for regular and responsible Congressional scrutiny of the Central Intelligence Agency. Such scrutiny is essential… Our form of government…is based on a system of checks and balances. If this system gets seriously out of balance at any point the whole system is jeopardized and the way is opened for the growth of tyranny…CIA is freed from practically every ordinary form of Congressional check. I agree that an intelligence agency must maintain complete secrecy to be effective. However, there is a profound difference between an essential degree of secrecy to achieve a specific purpose and secrecy for the mere sake of secrecy.

Public agencies should be criticized.

All persons who take part in government are accountable for their actions.

Surely we don’t want the President to lie, we don’t want our senators to lie, we don’t want our congressmen to lie. But sometimes they do.

Everything the CIA does is secret and it is secret particularly from the Congress.

The problem comes from the lack of transparency and accountability of government.

Access to government-held information allows citizens to hold their government accountable for policy decisions and public expenditures…. Access to information bridges the gap between state and society ….

Our government cannot function cloaked in secrecy. It cannot function unless officials tell the truth.

The overarching purpose of access to information legislation … is to facilitate democracy. It does so in two related ways. It helps to ensure first, that citizens have the information required to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, and secondly, that politicians and bureaucrats remain accountable to the citizenry.

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

Governments and local administrative bodies decide to inform the public of their mistakes only when losses have become disproportionately great.

Government is the creature of the people, and that which they have created they surely have a right to examine.

From now on, the government has to make its accounts public on a quarterly basis.

The only way we are held accountable is if people know what government is doing.

We critique all politicians who are in power, whenever there's a talking point.

It's important to make sure that governments have some checks on what they do, that people can oversee what's being done so the government doesn't abuse it.