Barbara Krug Quotes

Self government cannot work if the people do not know what their rulers are doing and why.

When it comes to governments and corporations, we should demand that less is secret. That's where corruption flowers.

Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens.

Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

Government ought to be all outside and no inside [for] corruption thrives in secret places [and] it [is] a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.

I have been instructed by cabinet and caucus members at our last secret meeting that we need more openness in government, but, like, not too much.

Publicity and openness, honest and complete -- that is the prime condition for the health of every society, and ours, too. The man who does not want them in our country is indifferent to his fatherland and thinks only about his own gain.

Public disclosure is one of the great disinfectants ever invented.

Elections alone will never be enough to ensure good governance.

Secrecy is the greatest peril to the future of this democracy and the world.

Our government cannot function cloaked in secrecy. It cannot function unless officials tell the truth.

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.

The overarching purpose of access to information legislation … is to facilitate democracy. It does so in two related ways. It helps to ensure first, that citizens have the information required to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, and secondly, that politicians and bureaucrats remain accountable to the citizenry.

… a guarantee of public access to government information is indispensable in the long run for any democratic society.... if officials make public only what they want citizens to know, then publicity becomes a sham and accountability meaningless.

Usually the public is better off with more information than less. That includes information the government would like to keep quiet.

The government being the people’s business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to public view.

Sunlight is better than secrecy when it comes to making laws.

The more government transparency, the better.

Obama's openness is a welcome change from his predecessor, who went all the way to the Supreme Court to hide the RSVP list for a single policy meeting. And transparency is intrinsically good, since in a democracy, very little government activity is legitimately secret.

The ANC must ensure that South Africa does not become a mafia state because once you reach that state, all the wheels have come off.

I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious ... I am for secret, dark debates.

Nothing so diminishes democracy as secrecy.

I see corruption as a mortal enemy for young democracies.