Agency Accountability Quotes

If National Security Agency (NSA) heads fundamentally lack an understanding of what constitutes constitutionally protected communications, or worse, chose to disregard those directives, then it's time for the appropriate heads of these agencies to resign.

The CIA is an easy target because they do so much that is wrong.

If the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies were private companies and were chronically unable to accomplish one of their key missions, their shareholders would have long ago revolted, fired their management, and their stock would be trading at values near zero.

The RFA requires federal agencies to assess the economic impact of their regulations on small firms, and if significant, consider less burdensome alternatives. Federal agencies sometimes fail to comply at all, or simply 'check the box,' fulfilling the letter of the law, while missing the purpose of the law entirely.

The only people who aren’t criticized are those who do nothing, and I would hate to see the agency [CIA] get in that state.

The head of the CIA, it seems to me, would think long and hard before he admitted that former employees of his had been involved in the murder of the President of the United States-even if they weren't acting on behalf of the Agency when they did it.

There are issues the EPA should be dealing with. When I talk about the EPA and its role with the states, it's not an abolitionist view, that we don't need that agency. It's that the agency should act within the outlines established by Congress.

As a proud former Secret Service agent, it's tough to stand by and watch the agency struggle.

We need to encourage designers and agencies to be responsible. We need to make sure everyone is sensitive to the issues. But to calculate the girls' body mass - I personally think it is demeaning.

We need to ensure that the government agencies that are supposed to be regulating the financial system are actually doing their jobs. We must shrink the federal government and hold it accountable - and to do that, we need a leader who understands how bureaucracies work and how to cut them down to size.

The EPA has a history of overreaching its authority.

To reform the Secret Service, the agency needs a director from outside the agency who will be immune from that culture and not beholden to entrenched bureaucrats within the agency.

Most lawsuits against the EPA historically have come either because of the agency's lack of regard for a statute or because the EPA failed in an obligation or deadline.

One of the responsibilities of Congress is the power of the purse, but there is also oversight. In order to have proper oversight, you have to have agency administrators, directors, and secretaries of those agencies speak frankly and about the facts.