A Quote by Patrick Leahy

Press releases tell us when federal agencies do something right, but the Freedom of Information Act lets us know when they do not.

Patrick Leahy

Quote Topics

Act Agencies Federal Freedom Information Know Lets Press Press Release Right Something Tell Us

Quote Author

Patrick Leahy
American - Politician
Born: March 31, 1940

Prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, it was very difficult - often impossible - for us to share information with the Central Intelligence Agency, with NSA, with the other intelligence agencies, and likewise, for them to share information with us.

Robert Mueller

The US intelligence community is deeply allergic to the Freedom of Information Act. It is fair to say that the intelligence community does nearly everything in its power to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.

Ryan Shapiro

The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is.

Phillips Brooks

I would like to see transparency become the default for the American government: Abolish the Freedom of Information Act so we don't have to ask government for information but government must ask to keep information from us. The more transparent government is, the more collaborative it can become. The more our officials learn to trust us - with information and a role in government - the more we can trust them.

Jeff Jarvis

Feeling compassion for ourselves in no way releases us from responsibility for our actions. Rather, it releases us from the self-hatred that prevents us from responding to our life with clarity and balance.

Tara Brach

We live in a time when there are tech companies that have an unprecedented accumulation of power, wealth, and information with basically no competition. It's not in their nature to self-regulate, to break themselves up, or ask for less information. It's only in their nature to grow and gain more information from us, because the more that they know about us, honestly the better they can market to us and sell to us and make us better consumers.

James Ponsoldt

In reality this is the very reverse of what we are told about the biblical God, who opens up freedom for us, who lets us make our own history, who goes with us on the more or less unheard-of adventures that we concoct.

Jacques Ellul

WikiLeaks has been a very strong proponent of the Freedom of Information Act. This is probably, actually, if you think about it, probably against our interests as - as a publisher. But we believe that people have the right to know true information about what their government is doing.

Julian Assange

Press freedom is not just about journalists, right? It's not just about us, it's not just about me, it's not just about Rappler. Press freedom is... the foundation of every single right of every single Filipino to the truth, so that we can hold the powerful to account.

Maria Ressa

Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone – to the citizen as well as the publisher… The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is, rather, the citizen’s ‘right to know.’

Arthur Hays Sulzberger

I recognize the need to provide the press - and, through you, the American people - with information to the fullest extent possible. In our democracy, the work of the Pentagon press corps is important, defending our freedom and way of life is what this conflict is about, and that certainly includes freedom of the press.

Donald Rumsfeld

A theory not only explains the world we see, it lets us imagine other worlds, and, even more significantly, lets us act to create those worlds. Developing everyday theories, like scientific theories, has allowed human beings to change the world.

Alison Gopnik

Some of the press who speak loudly about the freedom of the press are themselves the enemies of freedom. Countless people dare not say a thing because they know it will be picked up and made a song of by the press. That limits freedom.

Geoffrey Fisher

A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.