Beth Simone Noveck Quotes

What is true is that if we do not change the culture of Washington, D.C., the United States of America will cease.

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

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.

On taking office, Obama promised the 'most transparent' administration in history; yet his record as president has been anything but transparent.

If it takes talking about unpleasant truths to change Washington, then so be it.

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

Thomas Edison invented a voting machine for legislatures. Politicians hated it. They didn’t want people to know how they voted.

It's a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy.

You can reform a political culture, but it’s a big lift. First, the voters would have to convince the legislators that they’re being watched by someone other than the lobbyists. Then they’d have to press for laws that would force a change of behavior, like nonpartisan redistricting and ethics reform. Then the voters would have to follow up, year after year, until the old guard was replaced by a whole new generation who went into politics with dreams of drafting serious legislation, rather than just bringing more stuff back into the district or, at worst, shaking down some landlord at the airport for a thousand bucks.

There are good people, who are in politics — in both parties — who hold this at arm's length, because if they acknowledge it and recognize it, then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable.

To Any Officer or Employee of the Government: Please tell Mr. Lincoln Steffens anything whatever about the government that you know (not incompatible with the public interest) and provided only that you tell him the truth—no matter what it might be—I will see to it that you are not hurt. T. Roosevelt.

Although governments will also benefit from improved access to information, increased transparency will allow people at home and abroad to better observe and critique what governments do and to hold leaders accountable for their decisions. As a result, governments will find it harder to adopt strategies that require secrecy or violate international norms.

I'm against bureaucratization, corruption, seeing the same people in power.

Ask yourself, have you ever heard any of your PAP MPs ask the hard questions? As a Singaporean, you have a right to information that the Government is refusing to answer.

I had always believed government was not a fungus: It could survive in sunshine.

I promised to run the most open and transparent administration in Britain. That is why, with this brutally honest and unprecedented progress report, I am determined to level with Londoners.

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

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

Our public officials have forgotten that they are ultimately accountable to the people who put them in office, that the information they keep in secrecy belongs to all of us.

There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency.

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

The U.S. needs to do more than change presidents. It needs to change its political culture.

It's time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.

I ran for president in order to be able to try to change Washington D.C. from the inside. Our federal government is broken.

Now, a lot of people have given up on government. And if you're one of those people, I would ask that you reconsider, because things are changing. Politics is not changing; government is changing.