Official Secrets Act Quotes

Disclosure of private e-mails from government officials has been a legal issue in many states.

Politicians often claim secrecy is necessary for good governance or national security.

I was working for the CIA and prohibited from speaking publicly.

I would never jeopardize classified information. I served my country well and loyally, and I had to sue the C.I.A. on First Amendment grounds.

The Official Secrets Act 1989 may need reforming for the digital era, but I would argue that at its heart there should be protection for whistleblowers.

The Espionage Act is very broadly written. It doesn't make distinguish - or it doesn't make distinctions between categories of people that can receive and publish information and under what circumstances.

I do not want to respond to leaks that concern things that have to do with state secrets of the first degree.

In real danger sometimes even a democracy can really keep a secret.

In the '60s - and right up to the present day - the identity of a member of the British Secret Services was and is, quite rightly, a state secret. To divulge it is a crime. The Services may choose to leak a name when it pleases them.

The United States has made it through more than 200 years without ever finding it necessary to prosecute a journalist for soliciting a public employee to disclose confidential national security information.

The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets. It’s to protected officials.

We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.

There are some episodes in the history of Israel that are still kept under the strongest secrecy thick veil possible. Some of them are 40 years old, 50 years old, and are still under thick, thick secrecy, and anyone violating this secrecy would be thrown into jail himself.

There is no plausible theory under which the record of the Pentagon Papers can be interpreted as relating to the national defense.

The U.K. government has a responsibility to keep secrets in some circumstances. It also has a responsibility not to abuse that power for other purposes.

I can't take classified information that I get as a senator and give it to someone with no consequence.

One of the great things about the Fifties is there are so many secrets - people who've come back from the war and done these terrible things that they don't want to think about, or can't say what they did because they signed the Official Secrets Act.

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who transmit classified information and documents.

I was arrested on suspicion of breach of Official Secrets Act in March 2003, but they didn't charge me until November. Now, the in-between months, I was bailed and re-bailed, and my life was on standstill. I was in limbo. It was a difficult time for me and my family, because we just did not know what the future held for us.

So far as the Constitution goes .. the press is free to do battle against secrecy and deception in government. But the press cannot expect from the Constitution that they will succeed…. The Constitution itself is neither a Freedom of Information Act or an Official Secrets Act.

Under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the Justice Department prosecuted more people for having unauthorized discussions with reporters than all prior administrations combined.