The Presidents Speak: Perspectives on Open Government
"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." James Madison
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers." John Adams
"Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." Thomas Jefferson
"Information is the currency of democracy." Attributed to Thomas Jefferson
"Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe." Abraham Lincoln
"Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear, like owls and bats, before the light of day." James Garfield
"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
"Publicity is one of the purifying elements of politics. Nothing checks all the bad practices of politics like public exposure." Woodrow Wilson
"The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of its people, and a people strong enough and well informed enough to maintain its sovereign control over its government." Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"Knowledge is not only the key to power. It is the citadel of human freedom." Harry Truman
"Knowledge — full, unfettered knowledge of its own heritage, of freedom's enemies, of the whole world of men and ideas — this Knowledge is a free people's surest strength." Dwight Eisenhower
"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings," John F. Kennedy
"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is afraid of its people." John F. Kennedy
"We seek a free flow of informationâ¦we are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values." John F. Kennedy
"[F]reedom of information is so vital that only the national security, not the desire of public officials or private citizens, should determine when it should be restricted." Lyndon Johnson
"When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and â eventually â incapable of determining their own destinies." Richard Nixon
"We must never forget that the free flow of information is essential to a democratic society." Bill Clinton
"Access to public records gives citizens the opportunity to participate in public life, help set priorities, and hold their governments accountable. A free flow of information can be an important tool for building trust between a government and its citizens. It also improves communication within government to make the public administration more efficient and more effective in delivering services to its constituency. But, perhaps most importantly, access to information is a fundamental human right and can be used to help people exercise other critical human rights, such as clean water, healthcare, and education. Access to information has been more recently recognized as an instrument that can be utilized to fight poverty in developing nations." The Carter Center
"The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears." Barack Obama
Food for thought on Independence Day.
