Secret government programs that pry into people's private affairs are bound up with ideas about secrecy and privacy that arose during the process by which the mysterious became secular.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Secrecy is what is known, but not to everyone. Privacy is what allows us to keep what we know to ourselves.
What we've seen in government for so often is that people have been shady - about their roles, hiding things, not releasing things.
Secrecy is the foundation of politics.
Politicians often claim secrecy is necessary for good governance or national security.
It is up to the government to keep the government's secrets.
People who are in power make their arrangements in secret, largely as a way of maintaining and furthering that power.
As a matter of historical analysis, the relationship between secrecy and privacy can be stated in an axiom: the defense of privacy follows, and never precedes, the emergence of new technologies for the exposure of secrets.
It's increasingly clear that governments, major corporations, banks, universities and other such bodies view the defense of their secrets as a desperate matter of institutional survival, so much so that the state has gone to extraordinary lengths to punish and/or threaten to punish anyone who so much as tiptoes across the informational line.
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.
The idea of withholding a massive secret is obviously quite exciting to some people. It is also the basis of much classic drama, of course, from Sophocles onwards.
No opposing quotes found.