Secret Government Quotes & Sayings

All mechanical habits are bad and slavish, and this one is ferocious as well. Of course, if you look upon the work of the revolutionist as the mere wresting of certain definite concessions from the government, then the secret sect and the knife must seem to you the best weapons, for there is nothing else which all governments so dread. But if you think, as I do, that to force the government's hand is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end, and that what we really need to reform is the relation between man and man, then you must go differently to work. Accustoming ignorant people to the sight of blood is not the way to raise the value they put on human life. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

The majority of people in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and Governments are abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate. — Edward Snowden

The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that. — Joe Abercrombie

So I reckon, what's so secret that I can't let anybody know I know it, not the Galactic Government, not even myself? And the answer is I don't know. Obviously. But I put a few things together and I can begin to guess. When did I decide to run for President? Shortly after the death of President Yooden Vranx. — Douglas Adams

It's necessary to understand what real intelligence work is. It will never cease. It's absolutely essential that we have it. At its best, it is simply the left arm of healthy governmental curiosity. It brings to a strong government what it needs to know. It's the collection of information, a journalistic job, if you will, but done in secret. — John Le Carre

The bomb was 'born secret,' as Daniel Patrick Moynihan said. The atomic bomb marked a powerful turning point in America's stewardship of national security affairs. After its arrival, Garry Willis argues, 'the power of secrecy that enveloped the Bomb became a model for the planning or execution of Anything Important, as guarded by Important People.' But the first stop was a radical restructuring of the government itself, to account for the development and expansion of a nuclear arsenal requiring special means, staffs, oversight, and a stringent and novel regime of peacetime secrecy. The national security state was born. — Scott Horton

I'm warning you, I am a lethal killing machine. It was a secret government experiment. They did stuff to me. Spooky stuff... Anal stuff. It turned me into a dangerous telekinetic. As the ancient Tibetan Philosophy states "Don't start none, won't be none! — Andy Diggle

As readers, we have gone from learning a precious craft whose secret was held by a jealous few, to taking for granted a skin that has become subordinate to principles of mindless financial profit or mechanical efficiency, a skill for which governments care almost nothing. — Alberto Manguel

We consider ourselves to be free because no one in our society is allowed unlimited powerno leader, faction, party or 'class', no majority, no government, church, corporation, trade, or professional association or trade union. The secret of its freedom is that it is composed of a multitude of organisations in the constitution of the best of which is reproduced that diffusion of power which is characteristic of the whole. — Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Secret government programs that pry into people's private affairs are bound up with ideas about secrecy and privacy that arose during the process by which the mysterious became secular. — Jill Lepore

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. — Walter Ulbricht

As long as the government's actions are secret, it cannot be held accountable. A government for the people and by the people should be transparent to the people. — Al Gore

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind. — Thomas Jefferson

Perhaps Communists had wormed their way so deeply into our government on both the working and planning levels that they were able to exercise an inordinate degree of power in shaping the course of America in the dangerous postwar era. I could not help wondering and worrying whether we were faced with open enemies across the conference table and hidden enemies who sat with us in our most secret councils. — Mark W. Clark

We're becoming more of a police state, and the government is doing everything it can to protect its secrets. — Kenneth Eade

After investigating the government for more than two decades and authoring books on its secret programs, it's been my experience that the government does whatever the hell it wants, whenever the hell it wants, and justifies it later. — Anonymous

Adams understood that the secret to self-government is that the people must themselves be self-governing, which is to say they must be motivated by something beyond the law. — Eric Metaxas

Somebody's noticing the immigrant crime wave: Google illegal alien crime and you'll get more than 2 million hits. Google immigrant crime and you'll get 40 million. Only our government and media refuse to notice. Then they turn around and denounce anyone else's estimate, saying: You don't know that. So tell us! We "don't know that" only because the people in a position to know have decided to keep it secret. — Ann Coulter

I cannot say that our country could have no secret police without becoming totalitarian, but I can say with great conviction that it cannot become totalitarian without a centralized national police. — Robert H. Jackson

Some people think my father was a spy, because of working for that government agency in Vietnam, but he can't find his car keys, much less keep a national secret. — Lauren Graham

Despite America's first world economy, despite all the technical progress and productivity increases, there were still large numbers of people living well below the poverty line. The government had forced it. Low income citizens were addicted to minimum wage, welfare and Medicare, and it was impossible to wean them off. The secret effect was the creation of a slave class. Low level healthcare, food and shelter were provided, but what Thomas saw as he drove were people living lives worse than that of the average institutionalized prisoner. — Hunt Kingsbury

It's never a good thing to see a government agency talk in secret about the need to 'control protestors' - especially when that agency is charged with protecting the homeland against terrorists, not nonviolent demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceable dissent. — Michael Hastings

Our plans for 'Superman?' I can't say. This is the most super secret thing ever. It's like working for the government, like I'm on a covert mission. — Zack Snyder

It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow the whistle on bad government acts done in secret. But it does. And that is an immense problem for democracy, one that all journalists should be united in fighting. — Glenn Greenwald

When it comes right down to it, this story is not primarily about spies and secret government agencies; it's about violence against women, and the men who enable it. — Stieg Larsson

The American government has been harvesting the Middle Eastern grapes of wrath for a generation and not making a secret of it, either. As lousy as the mass media may be, there was enough news about what was transpiring, year after year, to get the gist of what was happening ... No American can truthfully say that they could not find out what was going on ... — Nicholas Von Hoffman

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. — Albert Einstein

Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. — Louis D. Brandeis

It is inconceivable that a secret arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government. — James Jesus Angleton

The combination of the growth of these digital technologies, the ability of the government to conjure up these secret interpretations, plus a very unusual and novel court make for this ever-expanding surveillance state. We so treasure our freedoms; we will regret it if our generation doesn't use this unique time to reform the surveillance laws and make it clear that security and liberty are not mutually exclusive. We can do both. — Ron Wyden

They need to review this secret world. We have an incredibly powerful government that gets on automatic pilot. — Bob Woodward

A certain secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democratic; for democracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by the people, for the benefit of Senators, and there is always a danger that the British Minister may not understand this political principle as he should. — Henry Adams

The corporations that profit from permanent war need us to be afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear permits the government to operate in secret. Fear means we are willing to give up our rights and liberties for promises of security. The imposition of fear ensures that the corporations that wrecked the country cannot be challenged. Fear keeps us penned in like livestock. — Chris Hedges

It's the secrecy surrounding drone strikes that's most troubling. . . We don't know the targeting criteria, or whether the rules for CIA and military drone strikes differ; we don't know the details of the internal process through which targets are vetted; we don't know the chain of command, or the details of congressional oversight. The United States does not release the names of those killed, or the location or number of strikes, making it impossible to know whether those killed were legitimately viewed as combatants or not. We also don't know the cost of the secret war: How much money has been spent on drone strikes? What's the budget for the related targeting and intelligence infrastructures? How is the government assessing the costs and benefits of counterterrorism drone strikes? That's a lot of secrecy for a targeted killing program that has reportedly caused the deaths of several thousand people. (117-118) — Rosa Brooks

Early in her career, Muse engaged her skills for technical purposes, such as document translation and schematic visualizations for government entities. She continued to write and paint poetically, in secret, using her pen name, Muse. An inner compass is evident in her work. Pieces reflect both past and present dilemmas; while showcasing her victories in overcoming these obstacles ~ all from her faith based perspective. Light touches of modernism play hand in hand with old world strokes, offering highly visceral readings. — Earl M. Coleman

What if, I never tire of asking, we said 'Secret Council' instead of the archaic and therefore cuddly 'Privy Council'? — Christopher Hitchens

Really, having a gun registry and having to rely on the government to keep it secret, the government isn't so great at keeping confidences. — Rand Paul

The Fourth Amendment is clear; we should be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, and all warrants must have probable cause. Today the government operates largely in secret, while seeking to know everything about our private lives - without probable cause and without a warrant. — Ron Paul

The government's collection authority, under the Patriot Act, is basically limitless. They can get the medical records and financial records, gun purchase records. And it also becomes part of another important issue that relates to the FISA court and the rest of the debate. It almost becomes a secret law, like there are two Patriot Acts. The one you read on the laptop essentially leads you to believe that there's some connection to terror . — Ron Wyden

Some information is classified legitimately; as with military hardware, secrecy sometimes really is in the national interest. Further, military, political, and intelligence communities tend to value secrecy for its own sake. It's a way of silencing critics and evading responsibility - for incompetence or worse. It generates an elite, a band of brothers in whom the national confidence can be reliably vested, unlike the great mass of citizenry on whose behalf the information is presumably made secret in the first place. With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. — Carl Sagan

The details of what the Fed did were kept secret until a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that I sponsored required the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed's lending programs during the financial crisis. — Bernie Sanders

A patent is simply and purely a grant of monopoly. Why would a supposedly enlightened government, which has laws against monopolies in other forms, grant them? The original idea was the opposite: you wanted the inventor to publish a description of the invention instead of keeping it secret. To induce him to, you offered, legally, some of the protection that he would have gotten by keeping the secret, enough to get a good head start on the competition.

It's not a bad idea, if it were done right... — J. Storrs Hall

However, this court is constrained by law, and under the law, I can only conclude that the Government has not violated FOIA by refusing to turn over the documents sought in the FOIA requests, and so cannot be compelled by this court of law to explain in detail the reasons why its actions do not violate the Constitution and the laws of the United States. The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me; but after careful and extensive consideration, I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules - a veritable Catch-22. I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret. — Colleen McMahon

Some even believe we (the Rockefeller family) are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. — David Rockefeller

Whenever doubts become a crime ... whenever parents become afraid their children might turn them in; a country where the power of the government is mired inextricably with the jurisdiction and the executive, where you have three secret polices spying on the population and people disappear without a word, that is not my country ... My country and Nazi Germany, those are two very different places. And I dearly hope I'll live to see the day when the latter one falls. — Osiris Brackhaus

The Muslim Brotherhood, or 'the Brotherhood' for short, is an Islamic group founded in Egypt in 1928. It has been pursuing a secret campaign to take over the government since its creation. — Richard Engel

Among the handful of British diplomats and military men aware of their government's secret policy in the Middle East-that the Arabs were being encouraged to fight and die on the strength of promises that had already been traded away-were many who regarded that policy as utterly shameful, an affront to British dignity. — Scott Anderson

The Crusaders lead to the Knights Templar; the Knights Templar lead to the Masons; and the Masons lead to the Shriners, a secret society that controls world government, toys with our banking system, and single-handedly keeps the fez industry afloat. — Stephen Colbert

Here's the dirty little secret: Fiat currency is designed to lose value. Its very purpose is to confiscate your wealth and transfer it to the government. Each time the government prints a new dollar and spends it, the government gets the full purchasing power of that dollar. — Michael Maloney

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US ... But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible. — Gideon Rachman

Sorry, I didn't see the big X with the words Top Secret Government Laboratory on the map, did you? — Julie Kagawa

Government want to tell you things you can't say because they're against the law, or you can't say this because it's against a regulation, or here's something you can't say because its a ... secret; "You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that." Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in. — George Carlin

A secret history of the US Government's Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a safe haven in the US for Nazis and their collaborators after WW2 and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad. — James Morcan

Black markets for things exist,' he said slowly, as if confiding a personal secret rather than a commercial fact, 'because the white markets are too strict. In this case, in the case of currencies, the government and the Reserve Bank of India control the white markets, and they're too strict. It's all about greed, and control. These are the two elements that make for commercial crime. Any one of them, on its own, is not enough. Greed without control, or control without greed won't give you a black market. Men can be greedy for the profit made from, let's say, pastries, but if there isn't strict control on the baking of pastries, there won't be a black market for apple strudel. And the government has very strict controls on the disposal of sewage, but without greed for profit from sewage, there won't be a black market for shit. When greed meets control, you get a black market. — Gregory David Roberts

Government ought to be all outside and no inside ... Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety. — Woodrow Wilson

Those of us who fought the crypto wars, as we call them, thought we had won them in the 1990s. What the Snowden documents have shown us is that instead of dropping the notion of getting backdoor government access, the NSA and FBI just kept doing it in secret. — Bruce Schneier

Here's the bottom line: The secret world of intelligence
at least in the United States of America
represents everything wrong with the government, the industrial era, our financial-economic system, and our ethics. — Robert David Steele

Unlike uranium, plutonium was created in an American lab in 1940, but scientists soon realized that it could produce even wilder chain reactions and even bigger explosions. In fact, fearing another country would create it, too, the American government went to great lengths to keep even the existence of plutonium a secret. — Sam Kean

Jackson gazed deeply into his son's eyes as he prepared to tell him the reason why life was so easy and prosperous; the secret behind the most lucrative contracts in the country, including the government. He wanted to explain all of this to Jonathan, and he would, but he knew he'd have to journey back more than 150 years. — Herbert C. Robinson

In the beginning, the U.S. government was happy with its secret operations, since it thought it had managed to gather all the evils of the world in GTMO, and had circumvented U.S. law and international treaties so that it could perform its revenge. But then it realized, after a lot of painful work, that it had gathered a bunch of non-combatants. Now the U.S. government is stuck with the problem, but it is not willing to be forthcoming and disclose the truth about the whole operation. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Pilfering was common in Communist China's state-owned enterprises, as the Party secretaries were slack in guarding properties that belonged to the government and poorly paid workers felt it fair compensation for their low pay. The practice was so widespread that it was an open secret. The workers joked about it and called it "Communism," which in Chinese translation means "sharing property." Pg. 390 — Nien Cheng

Make no mistake. The greatest destroyer of ecology. The greatest source of waste, depletion and pollution. The greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, poverty, animal abuse and inhumanity. The greatest generator of personal and social neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety. Not to mention the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for personal health, global sustainability and progress on this planet, is not some corrupt government or legislation.
Not some rogue corporation or banking cartel.
Not some flaw of human nature and not some secret cabal that controls the world.
It is the socioeconomic system itself at its very foundation. — Peter Joseph

I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about
and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them. — Barry Goldwater

It's no secret that Cuba is a typical Latin American culture in that it has a fair amount of homophobia. Homosexuals have been notoriously persecuted under Fidel's government. — Rachel Kushner

My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy. — Ron Paul

And Bethod means to make war on this? He must be mad."
"Bethod, for all his waste and pride, understands the Union. They are jealous of one another, all those people. It may be a union in name, but they fight each other tooth and nail. The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that. The casualties are many. Behind those walls they shout and argue and endlessly bite one another's backs. Old squabbles are never settled, but thrive, and put down roots, and the roots grow deeper with the passing years. It has always been so. They are not like you, Logen. A man here can smile, and fawn, and call you friend, give you gifts with one hand and stab you with the other. You will find this a strange place. — Joe Abercrombie

Convinced that the republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind, my prayers & efforts shall be cordially distributed to the support of that we have so happily established. It is indeed an animating thought that, while we are securing the rights of ourselves & our posterity, we are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies also. Heaven help their struggles, and lead them, as it has done us, triumphantly thro' them. — Thomas Jefferson

I'm perennially intrigued how people who lead largely evidence-based lives can, in a belief-based part of their mind, be certain that an invisible, divine entity created an entire universe just for us, or that the government is stockpiling space aliens in a secret desert location. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The secret ballot makes a secret government; and a secret government is a secret band of robbers and murderers. — Lysander Spooner

Uncertainty is one of government recipes. — Toba Beta

Alex was growing in prominence. I noticed him trending on Twitter from time to time, for telling his now millions of fans that U.S. scientists were covertly creating "man-fish hybrids," that atheists "worship Lucifer," and that the government puts secret chemicals in juice boxes to turn Americans gay: "After you're done drinking your little juices you're ready to put makeup on, wear a short skirt, put together a garden of roses or something." And — Jon Ronson

Government should be of the people, by the people, for the people. What part of that do politicians and government bureaucrats not understand? Government has no right to keep secrets from the people. The people are paying for it. It's THEIR government. They have a right to know everything going on. — Wayne Allyn Root

The government knew a secret that the American public didn't: the numbers of border crossers were down, across the board. Maybe the fence, maybe the harsh new atmosphere — Luis Alberto Urrea

We're definitely in an era where the government wants to keep more secrets and it wants to come after anyone who's exposing those secrets and in many cases exposing government illegality. They're coming after the journalists and they're coming after the whistleblowers. It's not a good sign if the government is expending much energy trying to find out who journalists are talking to. — Laura Poitras

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other. — Napoleon Bonaparte

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils. — Thomas Paine

We did not lack for religious leaders to urge us into "godly" war [ ... ]. All of this was part of a well-financed propaganda campaign on the part of British agents. As usual, the government of the United States was being "run" by the British Secret Intelligence Service. — Eustace Mullins

Battles against Rome have been lost and won before, but hope was never abandoned, since we were always here in reserve. We, the choicest flower of Britain's manhood, were hidden away in her most secret places. Out of sight of subject shores, we kept even our eyes free from the defilement of tyranny. We, the most distant dwellers upon earth, the last of the free, have been shielded till today by our very remoteness and by the obscurity in which it has shrouded our name. Now, the farthest bounds of Britain lie open to our enemies; and what men know nothing about they always assume to be a valuable prize ...
A rich enemy excites their cupidity; a poor one, their lust for power. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them. They are the only people on earth to whose covetousness both riches and poverty are equally tempting. To robbery, butchery and rapine, they give the lying name of 'government'; they create a desolation and call it peace ... — Tacitus

I don't think it's any secret that the public has lost confidence in the state government, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done on issues related to public integrity. — Eric Schneiderman

I did attempt to find out if there were any secret government documents that revealed things. If there were, they were concealed from me too. And if there were, well I wouldn't be the first American president that underlings have lied to, or that career bureaucrats have waited out. But there may be some career person sitting around somewhere, hiding these dark secrets, even from elected presidents. But if so, they successfully eluded me ... and I'm almost embarrassed to tell you I did (chuckling) try to find out. — William J. Clinton

Unfortunately, most scientists were radicals, socialists, and liberals. There was hardly a conservative among them. And they believed that the truths discovered by science were for humankind to share, and should never be kept secret in the service of one regime or country. So while the American government was keeping this huge project top secret, the scientists held discussion groups about sharing nuclear technology with all the nations of the world. Oppie himself was suspect: the only reason he was not in the Communist Party was that he never joined clubs. — Ken Follett

Now I'm in a top-secret government base somewhere in the middle of fucking Iowa, waiting to find out what the hell is happening. In short - I'm totally losing my shit. — Ernest Cline

The government does not need to know more about what we are doing. We need to know more about what the government is doing. We should be thankful for individuals like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald who see injustice being carried out by their own government and speak out, despite the risk. They have done a great service to the American people by exposing the truth about what our government is doing in secret. — Ron Paul

These examples and many others demonstrate an alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen
a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of man's life at will.
[Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 343 (1966) (dissenting)] — William O. Douglas

A reporter's ability to keep the bond of confidentiality often enables him to learn the hidden or secret aspects of government. — Bob Woodward

The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every person pause. — E.B. White

Not knowing who the particular individuals are, who call themselves "the government," the taxpayer does not know whom he pays his taxes to. All he knows is that a man comes to him, representing himself to be the agent of "the government" - that is, the agent of a secret band of robbers and murderers, who have taken to themselves the title of "the government," and have determined to kill everybody who refuses to give them whatever money they demand. — Lysander Spooner

Governments regard their own citizens as their main enemy, and they have to be - protect themselves. That's why you have state secret laws. Citizens are not supposed to know what their government is doing to them. — Noam Chomsky

The idea for the Guild first came up at a party. Your father and I met there and, well, I suppose that's a story all its own. But we were both frustrated by the media at the time. We set out to tell the truth when everyone else seemed set on choosing sides. We had grand ideas about how far we could reach. ... Back then, we knew we should be careful, but we had no idea how dangerous it would turn out to be. — Sonny And Ais

When you can't do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damned secret, then we're on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn't have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix. — Harry S. Truman

The Federal government does not have any information about extraterrestrial life to conceal, and there are no secret projects for me to investigate. — Orrin Hatch

the U.S. government has a long history of overclassifying information that shouldn't be classified at all - and keeping information classified until long after any justification for classifying it has disappeared. — Rosa Brooks

We are a revitalized tribe. After every major upheaval, we have been able to gather together as a people to rebuild a community and a government. Individually and collectively, Cherokee people possess an extraordinary ability to face down adversity and continue moving forward. We are able to do that because our culture, though certainly diminished, has sustained us since time inmemorial. This Cherokee culture is a well-kept secret. — Wilma Mankiller

The job of a journalist is to find out stuff. The job of the government - sometimes - is to keep stuff secret. There's a natural tension there. — Alex Gibney

If you want to change the world right now, it's not so much a secret how you do it. You put the secrets of a criminal government on the Internet. — Tom Morello

It may be a union in name, but they fight each other tooth and nail. The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that. The casualties are many. — Joe Abercrombie

I would say that the Pentagon Papers case of 1971 - in which the government tried to block the The New York Times and The Washington Post that they obtained from a secret study of how we got involved in the war in Vietnam - that is probably the most important case. — Floyd Abrams

Experiment or not, the government is always watching. - Felix — Donna Galanti

Perhaps most unsettling, Quigley reveals that real power operates behind the scenes, in secrecy, and with little to fear from so-called democratic elections. He proves that conspiracies, secret societies, and small, powerful networks of individuals are not only real; they're extremely effective at creating or destroying entire nations and shaping the world as a whole. We learn that "representative government" is, at best, a carefully managed con game. — Joseph Plummer

Be militant in your own way! Those of you who can break windows, break them. Those of you who can still further attack the secret idol of property ... do so. And my last word is to the Government: I incite this meeting to rebellion. Take me if you dare! (Emmeline Pankhurst, 1912) — Fran Abrams