Pierre Omidyar Quotes

Judy Miller is the most innocent person in this case. I really thought that was outrageous that she was jailed and we needed as journalists to draw a line in the sand in a strong but thoughtful way.

I think it's wrong for the government to subpoena records from journalists involved in national-security reporting (particularly since I do it myself). I do believe it has a chilling effect on the ability to gather news about potential abuses masked by inappropriate classification.

You really can’t have a democracy if the government knows the content of every conversation between journalists and their sources. You can’t have a democracy with that kind of surveillance going on.

When reporters are in the business of obtaining hard facts that service the free flow of information, journalists should have a right to obtain that information without fear of personal ruin or incarceration.

The ability of the press to print their stories without the government trying to get them to betray their sources is as essential to a free press as the ink it is printed with. Otherwise, who will hold accountable those who hold power over us?

I know a lot of reporters certainly will go to jail to defend confidential sources. Some have even gone to jail for an issue like this. But I can't say that's the norm.

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 is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source.

We have to protect all journalists, and journalists have to be allowed to do their jobs.

Free speech and freedom of the press are under attack in the U.K. I cannot return to England, my country, because of my journalistic work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and at WikiLeaks. There are things I feel I cannot even write.

I have always thought it morally unacceptable to kill stories, not to run stories, that people have risked their lives to get.

I never thought I'd see the day when the U.S. government could listen in on phone conversations or read private mail without first obtaining a warrant from a court. That sounds more like something that happened in the Soviet Union.

There's nothing wrong with talking out loud in public, but there is something wrong with the government sucking up all those utter instances in a database just in case they maybe want to bust you in five years.

It's always unfortunate when a reporter is sent behind bars for failing to turn over sources. There's no way to say what the long-term outcome will be.

Government has an obligation not to inhibit the collection and dissemination of news…. I’m convinced that if reporters should ever lose the right to protect the confidentiality of their sources then serious investigative reporting will simply dry up.

Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

As long as I am Attorney General, no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail.

Flaws and all, I believe the free press is our country's most important institution - one I am more than happy to defend. One I did, in fact, defend for 37 years.

I think cameras ought to be everywhere the reporters are allowed to go. I think, furthermore, reporters and cameras ought to be everywhere that the Constitution says the public can go.

I mean, Ed Snowden was basically saying the same things that Bill Binney and Thomas Drake and other U.S. whistleblowers had said before him. But he came out more publicly, and maybe revealed more. He showed that when the U.S. government said, 'We are not surveilling U.S. citizens,' that was a lie.

Simply stated, sometimes journalists can only get their information from informants who must remain anonymous in order to protect their careers and sometimes even their lives: Watergate: Confidential sources. The Pentagon Papers: Confidential sources. Enron: Confidential sources.

And, you know, in my opinion, when the FBI uses these sources, there are a lot of internal guidelines on how they can be used and particularly if they touch in any way on First Amendment activity. So you know, journalists, political activity, clergy people - all of those get extra special protection when it comes to FBI investigation.

WikiLeaks' disclosures should be protected under the First Amendment.

Reporters, even flawed reporters, should not be jailed for protecting even flawed sources.

I see Edward Snowden as someone who has chosen, at best, exile from the country he loves-with a serious risk of his assassination by agents of his government or life in prison (in solitary confinement)-to awaken us to the danger of our loss of democracy to a total-surveilla nce state