On March 16th 1978 the Italian left-wing terrorists kidnapped the former Italian prime minister Mr Aldo Moro. On that day the Italian parliament was about to debate the inclusion of the Italian Communist Party in a government of national unity for the first time since 1948. Aldo Moro had long believed that this was the only solution for political stability in Italy. Timewatch: Operation Gladio: Foot Soldiers
The basic purpose of FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed. United States Supreme Court, NLRB v Robbins Tire Co 437 US 214, 242 1978
Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. Lord Acton
The struggle of the government’s need for secrecy versus the public’s right to know and the press’s duty to find out and tell is unending. Too frequently it is discussed in public print in connection with the misguided efforts of a bureaucrat to cover up stupidity or wrongdoing. It deserves more serious consideration for it raises fundamental questions about government-press relations in a time of international peril – a condition likely to continue for the indefinite future. Douglas Cater
In America, the government belongs to the people. Inherent in our system of self-government is the idea that the People have the right to know what our government and government officials are doing and to hold them accountable for their actions. State and federal freedom of information (or ‘sunshine’) laws, which include laws that guarantee access to both public meetings and public records, are one of the primary ways of ensuring such accountability. Citizen Access Project
Nothing so diminishes democracy as secrecy. Ramsey Clark
Far too often when citizens seek records from our government, they are met with long delays, denials and difficulty. Federal agencies can routinely and repeatedly deny requests for information with near impunity. Making the situation worse, requesters have few alternatives to lawsuits to appeal an agency’s decision. John Cornyn
A government by secrecy benefits no one. It injures the people it seeks to serve; it damages its own integrity and operation. It breeds distrust, dampens the fervour of its citizens and mocks their loyalty. Russell Long
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 – eventually – incapable of determining their own destinies. Richard M Nixon
Power corrupts, and there is nothing more corrupting than power exercised in secret. Daniel Schorr
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. Gerard LaForest, Dagg v Canada 1997
Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government. Jeremy Bentham
I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents. Edward Snowden
The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to. Edward Snowden
I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building. Edward Snowden
When we’ve got these people who have practically limitless powers within a society. If they get a pass without so much as a slap on the wrist, what example does that set for the next group of officials that come into power? To push the lines a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further, and we’ll realize that we’re no longer citizens – we’re subjects. Edward Snowden
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. Theodore Roosevelt
These international bankers and Rockefeller Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspapers and the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of public office officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which control the invisible government. Theodore Roosevelt
Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery. R Buckminster Fuller
There exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself. Daniel K Inouye, US Senator Hawaii, testimony Iran Contra Hearings 1986
There is an invisible hand in politics that operates to the opposite direction to the invisible hand in the market. In politics, individuals who seek to promote only the public good are led by an invisible hand to promote special interests that it was no part of their intention to promote. Milton Friedman
It is an interesting observation to note how seemingly unknown personalities magically appear on the scene as presidential candidates. Then, before you know it, somehow you are left to choose from a small group of extremely wealthy people, who suspiciously have the same broad social view. Obviously it’s a joke. The people placed on the ballot are done so because they have been pre-decided to be acceptable by the established financial powers who actually run the show. Yet many who understand this illusion of democracy often think – if only we could just get our honest ethical politicians in power, then we would be OK ... Unfortunately, another fallacy. Zeitgeist addendum, 2008
The dirty little secret is that both Houses of Congress are irrelevant. America’s domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. America’s foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund. When the President decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress. Robert Reich, USA Today 7th January 1999
The word Government actually appears in the Treaty in this context for the first time that I’ve ever seen it ... All in the name of saving the planet for a problem we know is not really a problem. That’s exactly their ambition. They want nothing less than total world domination, to use the old phrase ... They want to it by a stealthy bureaucratic coup-d’etat. Christopher Monckton, interview Alex Jones, re Treaty of Copenhagen
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill ... All these dangers are caused by human intervention ... But the real enemy, then, is humanity itself. The First Global Revolution, published Club of Rome 1991
The elites have said that they want a final revolution – that they know the public’s going to revolt against them, so that’s why they’ve scientifically set up the surveillance grid, the cashless society, this whole continuity of government system is designed to suppress and control the people of America. Alex Jones
Rome, May 9th 1978: In the city centre police discover a Renault 4. Inside is the body of Aldo Moro, the president of Italy’s Christian Democrat Party. An infamous crime had been committed against a high profile politician. A man who wanted to overcome a barrier in Italian society and share power with the Communist Party. The murder of Aldo Moro bore the signature of the extreme Left, the Red Brigades. But many wondered if the extreme right had not guided the murder weapon so as to block a political initiative which had begun inauspiciously six weeks earlier. Political Assassinations: Death in Rome: The Case of Aldo Moro
The head of the Lodge [P2] Licio Gelli was a militant anti-communist with long-standing links to the CIA. He was also one of Aldo Moro’s bitterest enemies. Moro wanted to fight this terror campaign by means of a broad alliance which would also bring the communists into the fold ... The shots were fired ... Gelli, head of the P2 lodge and working for the secret service, is reported to have said just afterwards, The hardest part has been done. ibid.
The next morning at 8:30 a radio station broadcast the news that Aldo Moro had been kidnapped half an hour before it actually happened. And the secret services also knew something. ibid.