William O. Douglas Quotes

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

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

As much as possible, you simply don't give out information to the public, that is the first principle.

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

The law does not distinguish terribly well between real secrets and sort-of secrets, especially in an age when the instinct to stamp “classified” runs rampant.

An obsession with secrecy persists in leading industrial countries.

Some information has to remain in the privy of the office of the Prime Minister and the ministers for the proper administration of government.

We’re reaching a point where we have over classification. Every single administration, Republican and Democrat, has classified too much stuff. And now it’s getting out of control.

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.

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

I will not, nor will I ever, publicly divulge sensitive intelligence sources and methods. For when that happens, our national security is endangered and lives can be lost.

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.

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.

The information I received as a member of the National Security Council, in my capacity as Vice—President, was so confidential that I would lose my right arm before I divulge it to anyone, even to members of my own family…

The National Security Agency plays so highly specialized a role in the defense and security of the United States that an outsider can actually describe its activities. They are guarded not only from the public but from other government agencies as well. The Civil Service Commission, which audits all government positions, is not allowed to know what NSA employees do.

The people have the right to know what their Agents are doing or have done, and it should not be in the option of the Legislature to conceal their proceedings.

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

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

In the Eisenhower days, for example, the "Top Secret" stamp was used very, very freely in order not to conceal information from the Soviets or from potential enemies, but simply to conceal it from the U.S. people and from the press. This is done again and again.

It is sometimes necessary to keep matters secret among a few.

We should certainly declassify any information that we know that the enemy knows. At that point it is only the American people who are in the dark.

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.

The United States is the only country in the world that has ever released the operations files of its intelligence agency.

Bureaucracy always seeks the path of least disclosure.