Political Quotes

“The central fact is that we live today in an information age. Open sources give us the vast majority of what we need to know in order to make intelligent decisions. Analysis, far more than secrecy, is the key to security. Decisions made by people at ease with disagreement and ambiguity and tentativeness. Decisions made by those who understand how to exploit the wealth and diversity of publicly available information, who no longer simply assume that clandestine collection, i.e. ``stealing secrets'', equates with greater intelligence. We are not going to put an end to secrecy. It is at times legitimate and necessary. But a culture of secrecy need not remain the norm in American government as regards national security. It is possible to conceive that a competing culture of openness might develop which could assert and demonstrate greater efficiency.”