Adolfo Aguilar Zinser Quotes

Remarkably, governments are beginning to embrace the idea that nothing enhances democracy more than giving voice and information to everybody in the country. Why not open their books if they have nothing to hide?

And we can celebrate when we have a government that has earned back the trust of the people it serves... when we have a government that honors our Constitution and stands up for the values that have made America, America: economic freedom, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.

The first law I passed in my cabinet was a law eliminating the double salary for the prime minister and the ministers. I have a salary as member of parliament. I don't want a double salary. So it was a very important decision.

I have kept a steady focus on restoring public faith in our state government since taking office July 1. Now it is time to make even bigger and bolder gains through legislative action.

The American people need to know the truth. The American people need to see the truth. In a democracy, letting the people know the truth is the essence of what it means to be free.

Since 2001, I've done what every elected official should be doing in government right now. My staff and I took a look at the books, thought outside the box and proposed reforms.

We need reform. We need more transparency between those who lobby us and ourselves in the Congress.

One of the greatest things that we provide in our democracy is the approachability of public officials.

We as citizens should hold our government accountable for word and deed.

If you have an open society that what happens—people say things and they criticize you.

With any bureaucracy, an accountable bureaucracy, we need the press and we need critics to keep us on our toes…. we do wish the press to continue to report and continue to criticize because it is only in that way that the government can continue to improve and meet the aspirations of an increasingly affluent society.

Our Presidents should not be able to conduct secret operations which violate our principles, jeopardize our rights, and have not been subject to the checks and balances which normally keep policies in line

Freedom of the press is the mortar that binds together the bricks of democracy -- and it is also the open window embedded in those bricks.

There will be scandals. There will be scandals. And then maybe we can reform again.

Why is there so much resistance among people who work in the Government to the seemingly obvious fact that, in our democracy, if the Government lies, it will eventually get caught

Where there has been a major, major corruption scandal, that was the catalyst for very specific reform.

In a democracy threatened by excessive secrecy and the criminalizing of news gathering, the more sunlight the better.

It is only in the freest of nations that people can not only criticize the government, fairly or unfairly, but in extraordinarily few—only the greatest—do the negative criticisms get very wide distribution. Look for the nation where their media are full of criticisms, and there you will find a nation sufficiently free and confident to consider possible improvement from any and all sources.

We will use new technology to hard-wire the kind of [transparency] reform and accountability into the culture of government so that it can’t be undone in the next administration.

The lack of trust between the federal government and the American citizens of this country is such a wide gap, we have to renew that trust for the people of this country going forward.

If we do not elect a national legislature that will hold Obama accountable, he and his radical cohorts will destroy the tree of liberty. Just mark my words.

We have to be bold, tough, and fundamentally change government because Springfield is broken.

The Office of Congressional Ethics was created to provide more transparency in the House of Representatives. It was a commendable goal.

We are a nation founded on distrust of government power, and questioning that power is essential to promoting transparency and accountability.

We'll continue to build a nation that is trusted by its people.