Open Governance Quotes

The present trend toward Government secrecy could end in a dictatorship. The more information there is made available, the greater will be the nation’s security.

To cover with the veil of secrecy the common routine of business is an abomination in the eyes of every intelligent man and every friend to his country.

Open rules! Open standards! Open findings! Open precedents!

There is no country on earth with a stronger tradition of protecting the public's right to know.

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

Although the original Constitutional Convention met behind closed doors, the founders immediately published every document associated with the drafting of the Constitution, revealed the names of everyone who had been involved in its creation, and kept nothing secret, including the minutes of the debate over its provision.

The citizens of New Hampshire expect and deserve a government as clean as our mountain streams and as open as our blue skies. Today let us pledge together to make this government - the people's government - clean, open and honest.

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.

If you believe in democracy, why shouldn't you know what the government is doing?

The government of the German Democratic Republic rejects secret policies. It works for the people, and only the people, so it does not need to keep secrets like the warmongers.

I dream of a Digital India where government is open, and governance is transparent.

Government that is open and honest will always be able to withstand the light of day.

We are trying to make politics more open. It became a Ukrainian tradition to make decisions behind closed doors.

At the most basic level, a central bank must be clear and open about its actions and operations, particularly when they involve the deployment of public funds.

Transparency is the key to good governance & e-governance is the only effective way of transparent governance.

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

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

In a democracy, the public has a right to know not only what the government decides, but why and by what process.

The movement towards radical transparency and accountability has been gaining steam for several decades.

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

Public business in the United State Senate should be done in the public.

Wikileaks is a democratizing force. Its giving individuals access to decisions and thinking by their representatives and in a democracy that ought to be reflexive.

Remarkably, governments are beginning to embrace the idea that nothing enhances democracy more than giving voice and information to everybody in the country. Why not open their books if they have nothing to hide?

If you have decisions taken from time to time at the level of the executives, which gives the impression of being discriminatory, if you are not open when government is functioning, then obviously people will make allegations.

The next four years, though, you still have to abide by the oversight process that is there to prevent this kind of bizarre sort of cult-like atmosphere that falls along. I mean, I accept that kind of veil of secrecy around Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, but I don't accept that around our government.