#cons

It is a fundamental principle of American democracy that laws should not be public only when it is convenient for government officials to make them public. They should be public all the time, open to review by adversarial courts, and subject to change by an accountable legislature guided by an informed public. If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy. That’s why, even at the height of the Cold War, when the argument for absolute secrecy was at its zenith, Congress chose to make US surveillance laws public. Without public laws, and public court rulings interpreting those laws, it is impossible to have informed public debate. And when the American people are in the dark, they can’t make fully informed decisions about who should represent them, or protest policies that they disagree with. These are fundamentals. It’s Civics 101. And secret law violates those basic principles. It has no place in America. ↗

— Ron Wyden

#law #national-security #secrets #surveillance #change

Americans in all places and levels of government have begun to consider the areas where we need to prepare ourselves from future threats, including the latest weapon: bio-terror. ↗

— Paul Gillmor

#begun #consider #future #government #including

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself. ↗

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg

#assumed #constitutional #curb #decline #efforts

Apple does great products, but at the end of the day we think consumers want choice, consumers want openness. ↗

— Rob Glaser

#choice #consumers #day #does #end

Nothing is more consuming, or more illogical, than the desire for remembrance. ↗

— Ellen Glasgow

#desire #illogical #more #nothing #remembrance

Like all sciences and all valuations, the psychology of women has hitherto been considered only from the point of view of men. ↗

— Karen Horney

#considered #hitherto #like #men #only

One of the prerogatives by which man is eminently distinguished from all other living beings inhabiting this globe of earth, consists in the gift of reason. ↗

— William Godwin

#consists #distinguished #earth #eminently #gift

The basic guarantees of our Constitution are warrants for the here and now, and unless there is an overwhelmingly compelling reason, they are to be promptly fulfilled. ↗

— Arthur Goldberg

#compelling #constitution #fulfilled #guarantees #here

The GOP needs to figure out a way to become more appealing to new constituencies. ↗

— Jonah Goldberg

#become #constituencies #figure #gop #more

Law breaking, graffiti artist, dumb jock that I am, I'm pretty socially conscious. ↗

— Duff Goldman

#artist #breaking #conscious #dumb #i