Bill Dedman Quotes

And this week, I am proposing legislation to strengthen our Open Records laws to make public access to our public records surer, faster, and more comprehensive.

It’s hard to sometimes get information out of the government. It’s really hard. You can’t do it without asking tough questions.

Ever since I arrived in Washington in April 2009, I have been fighting for more transparency and accountability in government.

Access to presidential materials should be as wide as possible.

I am pleased to report that Texas is known for having one of the strongest set of open government laws in our Nation. And ever since that experience, I have long believed that our federal government could use 'a little Texas sunshine.'

Disclosure of private e-mails from government officials has been a legal issue in many states.

I introduced the Transparency in Government Act, a multi-faceted transparency bill that would bring unprecedented access and accountability to the federal government.

As there is no spiking-the-football exception to our open-records laws, Judicial Watch initiated a federal court battle with the administration over the release of postmortem images of bin Laden and his alleged burial at sea.

We should be able to go to our government and get clear answers.

I think that the press has a duty and an obligation to report on local government, state government, federal government - to be aggressive, to do its job. And its job is to report on whatever it's covering.

Even in non-democratic countries, people have a legitimate interest in knowing about actions taken by the government.

There are, for example, exemptions in FOIA in which the government can withhold certain kinds of information, and the courts have recognized that there is certain documentation that do deserve protection, that certain privileges do apply and do deserve protection.

Many state parole boards claim exemptions from state sunshine laws that would be unthinkable for other government officials.

It appears to the American people that the government is intent on prying into every nook and cranny of people’s private lives, while at the same time doing all that it can to block access to government information that would inform the American people what is being done in their name.

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.

… no court was going to penalize a newspaper criminally for showing how the government had lied, particularly when the government’s own papers proved it.

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

The public has every right to see Robert S. Mueller III's conclusions. Absolutely nothing in the law or the regulations prevents the report from becoming public. Indeed, the relevant sources of law give Attorney General P. William Barr all the latitude in the world to make it public.

In the end, the public has the right to know about any undertakings top public officials engage in that may influence how they conduct the people's business.

I want my government to be transparent.

What many commentators have missed in the ongoing attack on Edward Snowden is not that he uncovered information that made clear how corrupt and intrusive the American government has become - how willing it is to engage in vast crimes against the American public.

The government does not need to know more about what we are doing. We need to know more about what the government is doing. We should be thankful for individuals like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald who see injustice being carried out by their own government and speak out, despite the risk. They have done a great service to the American people by exposing the truth about what our government is doing in secret.

I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.

The more government transparency, the better.

Transparency in government, no less than transparency in choosing government, remains a vital national interest in a democracy.