“Security services in principle exist for our protection but that is so only when they are accountable to the public for their considerable power.”
Pages 236-237.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition
Context: Why, then, are the world's governments intent on controlling and regulating the Internet? Free speech is most threatening to authoritarian systems such as autocracies, militaries, the police and security services. Security services in principle exist for our protection but that is so only when they are accountable to the public for their considerable power. We are seeing a push by these agencies to move beyond the rule of law, to be accountable to no one but themselves. National security is becoming the new word of God to which all must submit in blind obedience. The decisions made, the liberties eroded, the crimes committed in the name of national security cannot be challenged because the information on which they are based remains secret.
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Heather Brooke 61
American journalist 1970Related quotes
Newsletter (UK) http://www.newsletter.co.uk/community/columnists/maurice-neill-upholding-our-right-to-accountability-1-3856967 "MAURICE NEILL: Upholding our right to accountability", 18 May 2012.
Attributed, In the Media
Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)
Source: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/11/07/seeking-judicial-activism/
Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions
“Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure…”
A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 443
Attributed from posthumous publications
Order of Retaliation http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln6/1:755?rgn=div1;view=fulltext (30 July 1863); quoted in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 7 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 357
1860s
Context: It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age. The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession. It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war
1960s, Statement on the Freedom of Information Act (1966)
2000s, 2006, State of the Union (January 2006)
“Only puny secrets need protection. Big secrets are protected by public incredulity.”
Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972)
Context: Only puny secrets need protection. Big secrets are protected by public incredulity. You can actually dissipate a situation by giving it maximal coverage. As to alarming people, that's done by rumours, not by coverage. (p. 92)