Official Secrecy Quotes

People would know virtually nothing about their government were it not for confidential sources who can speak without fear of retaliation.

People will never know how hard it is to get information, especially if it's locked up behind official doors where, if politicians had their way, they'd stamp 'top secret' on the color of the walls.

The broad outlines of the Double Cross deception have been known since 1972, when Sir John Masterman, the former chairman of the double agent committee, controversially published his account of the operation in defiance of official secrecy.

The information I requested under the Freedom of Information Act has been blocked for two years.

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.

When the FOIA law was first being discussed, every federal agency opposed it.

Information on UFOs, including sighting reports, has been and is still being officially withheld.

Freedom of the press is not questioned when investigative journalism unearths scandals, But that does not mean that every classified state document should be made available to journalists.

The duty of a Privy Counselor appears from the oath of office [to require the Counselor] to keep the King’s counsel secret…[and] to withstand all persons who would attempt the contrary.

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.

Why did the British authorities wait eight months before charging me - and then drop the charges, claiming there was insufficient evidence for prosecution when I had confessed to the leak from the start?

I far more trust the press than I do the Administration with judgment of what should be secret and what shouldn’t. How many scandals has the Administration uncovered on its own?

[Defining state secrets:] All state affairs which have not yet been decided upon, or which have been decided upon but not yet been made public.

Lawyers, judges, doctors, shrinks, accountants, investigators and, not least, journalists could not do the most basic tasks without a veil of secrecy. Why shouldn't the same be true of those professionals who happen to be government officials?

Interdepartmental memoranda, advisory opinions, recommendations of subordinates, informal working papers, material in personnel files, and the like, cannot be subject to disclosure if there is to be any orderly system of government.

Bureaucracy always seeks the path of least disclosure.

In Washington, a confidential assistant is someone who, if you don't want to know something, you go and ask him and he won't tell you.

It’s hard to sometimes get information out of the government. It’s really hard. You can’t do it without asking tough questions.

The character and repute of President Kennedy constitute one of our greatest national resources. Nothing should be done to jeopardize this invaluable asset. When lies must be told, they should be told by subordinate officials.

Executive branch rules require sensitive classified information to be discussed in specialized facilities that are designed to guard against the possibility that officials are being targeted for surveillance outside of the workplace.

All alone in a committee room of the Senate Office Building in Washington, I was reading the dry typewritten pages in an unpublished report of an almost forgotten congressional committee hearing.

Publicly, we're saying we're better at fighting terrorism. Privately, we know that the bureaucracy has only gotten worse, since the high-level people are scared of being held responsible for 9/11.

In Russia everything is a secret, but there is no secrecy.

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

Anyone who lives in Washington and has an official position viscerally understands the cost of a lack of privacy. Every dinner - especially ones with a journalist in attendance - is preceded by the mandatory, 'This is off the record.' But everyone also knows, nothing is really 'off the record.'