Katharine Gun Quotes

The U.K. government has a responsibility to keep secrets in some circumstances. It also has a responsibility not to abuse that power for other purposes.

I don't see anything that's come out on WikiLeaks that was a legitimate secret.

In real danger sometimes even a democracy can really keep a secret.

The Obama administration does not hate unauthorized leaks of classified information. They are more responsible for such leaks than anyone. What they hate are leaks that embarrass them or expose their wrongdoing. Those are the only kinds of leaks that are prosecuted.

But the Congress has made the determination that certain kinds of information can be protected even though the American people may want to have access to information.

Most leaks from large bureaucracies are “good” leaks: no danger to national security, no harm to innocent people, information the public ought to know.

Regarding Wikileaks, I have profound ambivalent feelings about it. I am a firm believer in a strong intelligence service. There's a need for classified information.

What we do with the information now is up to us, but certainly I have a lot of respect for the courage and integrity that was required for [Edard Snowden] to take that action.

We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.

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

It is up to the government to keep the government's secrets.

The fact is that when it comes to judgment as to what should be secret and what should not be secret, Julian Assange's judgment has been pretty good so far.

The American people have been denied important information for their own protection.

In the history of Wikileaks, nobody has claimed that the material being put out is not authentic.

Whistle-blowing and publishing should not be seen as a crime, and certainly not as terrorism.

Leaks usually have more value to the public at large than the harm which they occasionally do.

The secrecy stamp … has been used to withhold information which in 99 ½ percent of the cases would present no danger to national security.

We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows

An obsession with secrecy persists in leading industrial countries.

The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets. It’s to protected officials.

No less a philosopher than Chief Justice Burger was outraged by Ellsberg's publication of classified documents. They belonged to the Government, Burger reasoned, and Ellsberg had no more right to give them to the people than he would have to filch another man's property off a taxicab seat. The Government, of course, commonly leaks classified documents when it deems publication convenient to manipulate public opinion to its advantage. Only the Government, it seems, has a legal right to manipulate opinion with hot documents.

Bureaucracy always seeks the path of least disclosure.

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

There is no plausible theory under which the record of the Pentagon Papers can be interpreted as relating to the national defense.

Snowden's revelations shocked the world and made it very clear why we need to have some way to look over those who look over us. With increasing terrorist attacks, security is critical, but not without any accountability or oversight.