Quotes about Secret Files

Gail Collins

My own dream is that we discover that the NSA has been secretly keeping files on members of the National Rifle Association.

Dustin Lance Black

If you're a history buff, you know about J. Edgar Hoover. He was likely the most powerful man in the US. If you start reading about him, the books contradict each other constantly. I was often left with very little sense of the man personally. I had a sense of what he did and didn't do and what people disagreed about whether he did this or didn't do this or that, but I was like, "Why? Why was he doing all of this?" That was my big question.

Jack Cafferty

Remember that J. Edgar Hoover’s secret files began in the interests of national security and ended up being used for blackmail.

The FBI director had become so powerful and unchecked by Congress or the President he used the FBI to assemble files on those whom he wanted including political figures. On many occasions he used these for various forms of blackmail, never for money, but to solicit compliance or support or obtain silence or cessation of opposition to positions he favored—especially the prerogatives of the FBI.

Glenn Howell

The President is anxious to know what the contents of the mysterious documents are.... I am going to tackle it, of course, but it's a devilishly awkward job, and I may readily find myself in a hell's brew of trouble.

There was a little known, historical precursor to Watergate. In 1930 a beleaguered President Hoover was informed that a Democratic politician named O'Brien had accumulated a personal file on the President which was personally and politically damaging. Hoover, through Louis L. Strauss, turned to the Office of Naval Intelligence which conducted a "black bag job" and broke into O'Brien's office, which turned out to be empty. The files were never found, and the burglars were never caught:

Herta Muller

For me, each journey to Romania is also a journey into another time, in which I never knew which events in my life were coincidence and which were staged. This is why I have, in every public statement I have made, demanded access to the secret files kept on me which, under various pretexts, have invariably been denied me.

Philip Sheenan

Lee Harvey Oswald was under surveillance by the FBI for months before the assassination.

This was the reason that the FBI withheld information from the Warren Commission investigating JFK’s assassination. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director was concerned that some people might conclude that the FBI bore some of the responsibility for the assassination for losing track of him. The CIA also withheld information to the commission to cover some of their misdeeds.

Greg Abbott

Sony has engaged in a technological version of cloak and dagger deceit against consumers by hiding secret files on their computers.

W. Mark Felt

The Bureau doesn't have any secret files.

Secret Files Quotes