Neal Katyal Quotes

Counter-corruption agencies cannot make a difference unless they are independent of the government actors they are supposed to monitor, restrain, and punish.

Is the Justice Department incapable of regulating itself? Without strong regulation, the privileges we give them to investigate us, to conduct their normal anti-crime things, can spiral out of control.

Independence sounds good in theory, but in practice, it is mutually exclusive with accountability. The more independence you give a prosecutor, the less you make that prosecutor accountable to the public and regular checks and balances.

What makes a politician accountable is not that there are millions of people who vote, but that there are procedures of government that force him to account for himself.

Whistleblowers play a vital role in ensuring that the federal government is accountable to the people it serves.

Snowden and NSA leaders should be brought together face-to-face for questioning in public by a congressional investigatory committee, with both parties allowed to make their points and to counter the assertions of the other. If Snowden is lying, it will come out. If the NSA is lying, it will come out.

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.

A government operates and acts differently than a company. So all we want to do is get some transparency here and then determine if the deal should go forward.

The great thing about Watergate is, is that the system worked. The American system worked. The press did its job. We did what we were supposed to do.

It's my father's legacy. My father's view was that the public is the employer of these government employees and has the right to know what they're up to.

It is scrutiny by the general public that keeps the powerful honest.

When it comes to governments and corporations, we should demand that less is secret. That's where corruption flowers.

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

Personally I don't think solving corruption is such a big problem.

Government will no longer be run on the whims of individuals.

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

The Ibrahim Index is a tool to hold governments to account and frame the debate about how we are governed.

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.

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

I will make a general statement that we have not had anything like the policy of holding people in high office responsible for their acts that I think we should.

The intelligence community, for the most part, has no accountability at all; to the Congress, to us the American people, and so they feel that they above the law.

In our recovery package we put new standards of accountability and transparency, which we hope will now apply.

Accountability and democratic choice, I deeply believe, are guaranteed by rigorous scrutiny only.

Administrators are there because of the fans and the cricketers to run this game, so credibility of a game, or a board, or even a government for that matter, is important irrespective of what you do. If you are in public life, it is important.

The state is obliged to fight corruption within the government.