Quotes by Ted Gup - Page 1

The SBUs have spread like kudzu and are choking off everyone's ability to see what the hell's going on in government.
Ted Gup / Writer
Government
Choke
Hell
Copy Quote
...In the vast majority of drug experiments, it is not uncommon for none or one or two of hundreds of patients to benefit from the drug.
Ted Gup / Writer
Dark
Drug
Two
Copy Quote
I would argue that in times of war, sealed lips sink entire democracies. If we don't have access to vital information, we lose everything.
Ted Gup / Writer
War
Democracy
Information
Copy Quote
Secrecy doesn't attach to particular parties; it attaches to power. All of the bull work is in place for whomever succeeds. That's my concern.
Ted Gup / Writer
Bulls
Party
Succeed
Copy Quote
These human experiments have gone largely unchallenged and unquestioned by Congress, the medical profession, and the scientific community at large.
Ted Gup / Writer
Age
Community
Dark
Copy Quote
There's no faster way or surer way to consolidate power and disenfranchise critics than to operate in secret. So this plays squarely into the promotion of the unitary executive. That's one factor.
Ted Gup / Writer
Play
Secret
Way
Copy Quote
The mechanics vary from place to place and from office to office. The handling of SBUs can be different in the same agency just across the hall, one from another. There are virtually no standards.
Ted Gup / Writer
Agency
Different
Office
Copy Quote
It will be important to restore those provisions, those disclose provisions, those release provisions so that presidents are indeed held accountable and their information and papers are made public.
Ted Gup / Writer
Important
Paper
President
Copy Quote
The level of trust is extraordinarily low and the level of suspicion extraordinarily high, and with good reason and on both sides. The press has hunkered down for very good reason, because it's being treated like a mushroom.
Ted Gup / Writer
Levels
Mushrooms
Sides
Copy Quote
The third factor is the natural predisposition of bureaucracies, both governmental and private, to exploit secrecy to whatever degree they are licensed to do so, and in this administration they're given virtually carte blanche.
Ted Gup / Writer
Administration
Degrees
Natural
Copy Quote
I don't think that the problems or the issues relate to any single piece of legislation. I think that they really do relate to the mindset that after eight years is pretty deeply embedded. It is not going to be easy to reverse itself.
Ted Gup / Writer
Issues
Thinking
Years
Copy Quote
Another factor is the post-9/11 security mentality, which views sunlight as toxic and imagines that somehow bin Laden is dependent upon our government documents, a "fact" that has never, ever been supported to my knowledge. So, that's the second factor.
Ted Gup / Writer
Government
Facts
Views
Copy Quote
There are benefits in the sense that there's still a certain level of confidence. But there are liabilities because you can coordinate and manipulate better as the instruments of oversight are more under your control. You don't have so many rogue operations.
Ted Gup / Writer
Benefits
Levels
Rogues
Copy Quote
A one year study by the Washington Post has documented 620 cases in which experimental drugs have been implicated in the deaths of cancer patients....And they amount to merely a fraction of the thousands of people who in recent years have died or suffered terribly from cancer experiments.
Ted Gup / Writer
Cancer
Dark
Years
Copy Quote
You have tens, hundreds of thousands of people in government, and just as many among contractors, who feel totally comfortable writing at the top of the document "internal use only," "official use only," and a million other synonyms, all of which amount to "none of your business" to the public.
Ted Gup / Writer
Government
People
Writing
Copy Quote
I love the idea of a shield law; I don't know of any journalist who doesn't love the idea of a shield law. It's all in the details. Some of the shield laws that were floating around sounded good, but when you looked at them, exceptions or exclusions or broadness in the language really invited some problems.
Ted Gup / Writer
Details
Ideas
Law
Copy Quote
If all these guys think that nothing is going to come out for 100 years, they're going to act a whole lot more boldly. So we need to get back into the declassification business. This notion of overclassification is not just a bleeding-heart liberal issue. When everything is classified, nothing is classified.
Ted Gup / Writer
Heart
Thinking
Years
Copy Quote
When you get new people in, you're going to have a breath of fresh air and there's going to be a window when people will decide what direction to go. It'll be determined by outside events, by the personalities that occupy those positions, and by the treatment they receive both from the press and the public, of the honeymoon period.
Ted Gup / Writer
Air
People
Personality
Copy Quote
If you are a reporter trying to find out what the hell's going on in government now, you have a devilish time. It is murder to set up an interview. It is murder to get someone's phone number. It's murder to be able to get in and talk to someone without a handler being present to chill it, or who doesn't insist upon questions in advance.
Ted Gup / Writer
Government
Numbers
Phones
Copy Quote
Whistleblowers is another aspect that needs to be addressed. We have to restore the protections of whistleblowers and also the encouragement and rewards. It shouldn't just be that they don't get crucified; it should be that they are again folk heroes, or celebrated for bringing critical matters to public attention, as opposed to traitors.
Ted Gup / Writer
Encouragement
Attention
Hero
Copy Quote
The real secrets start leaking out when there are too many secrets because people can't remember what's a real secret. There's a very famous line by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy: "If you guard your toothbrushes and your diamonds with equal zeal, you'll lose fewer toothbrushes and more diamonds." And that's where we are right now.
Ted Gup / Writer
People
Real
Secret
Copy Quote
One of the things that will probably need to be addressed is in the treatment of history, i.e. the Presidential Papers Act. If they can act with impunity, if they know that what they're doing is not going to see the light of day anytime in their lifetime, if they have the right to withhold information from the public, then presidents are given a vastly freer hand.
Ted Gup / Writer
Hands
Light
Presidential
Copy Quote
I don't think the question is if should we have a shield law. I think the question is what kind of shield law we should have. Yes, I'd like to see a federal shield law, but if and only if it provides genuine safeguards and doesn't green-light prosecutors and judges and litigants from going after the press and getting things to which they should not be entitled. It's not a simple kind of litmus test.
Ted Gup / Writer
Law
Simple
Thinking
Copy Quote
And fourthly there is a major shift in public opinion and attitude to accommodate to the post-9/11 mentality and the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy. I think the public has simply become increasingly accustomed to being turned away from vital information and is protesting less and less. You have some squeaky wheels out there, but I don't think they're representative of the population at large.
Ted Gup / Writer
Attitude
Public Opinion
Thinking
Copy Quote
One of the principal factors fueling the proliferation of the abuse of secrecy and sensitive but unclassifieds is the administration's adherence to the unitary executive principal. This administration more than any of its predecessors believes that it is its responsibility to collect power onto itself in the executive office when it comes to the conduct of war, foreign policy, the management of agencies and departments, regulations, etc.
Ted Gup / Writer
War
Believe
Responsibility
Copy Quote
The press is going to have to learn anew that it's possible to work in an environment that is not so toxic and to readopt those kinds of techniques. The relationship between the press and the Clinton White House during the later period was not a healthy one. There was a lot of hostility and a lot of suspicion. This administration has done systematically what no other administration had done. They came in with a corporate mentality, an ability to stay on script that was without parallel.
Ted Gup / Writer
Healthy
House
White
Copy Quote
An attitudinal sea change. I think that's the hardest one to fix. Presidential directives, bills, provisions can all be rescinded, repealed, amended, but attitudes linger. The hardest thing is going to be to try to reverse an attitude, a bunker mentality that equates secrecy with either security or heightened efficiency and that regards transparency as an invitation to mischief and trespass. This default position of operating in the shadows is going to be somewhat appealing to whomever inherits office.
Ted Gup / Writer
Attitude
Sea
Thinking
Copy Quote
Every effort is made to control information. Secrecy is just one of the toggles on their control board. The mindset is in place, and they've done a lot of hiring over eight years, not just political appointees. And they've done a lot of firing or driving people out who might have countermanded or resisted. So, institutionally, it's not going to be simply a matter of flipping the switch to undo it. You're going have to bring in people dedicated to transparency, and you have to demonstrate that there are rewards for candor.
Ted Gup / Writer
Eight
People
Years
Copy Quote

Related Writer Authors

Voltaire
Writer
Sunday, Nov 21, 1694
Saturday, May 30, 1778
Oscar Wilde
Writer
Monday, Oct 16, 1854
Friday, Nov 30, 1900
Zoltan Istvan
Writer
Zoe Valdes
Writer
Saturday, May 02, 1959
Zlata Filipović
Writer
Wednesday, Dec 03, 1980
Zitkala-Sa
Writer
Tuesday, Feb 22, 1876
Wednesday, Jan 26, 1938
Ziauddin Sardar
Writer
Wednesday, Oct 31, 1951
Zelig Pliskin
Writer
Zan Perrion
Writer
Saturday, Jul 02, 1966
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Writer
Yusuf Idris
Writer
Thursday, May 19, 1927
Thursday, Aug 01, 1991
Young-Ha Kim
Writer
Monday, Nov 11, 1968
Yoshiki Nakamura
Writer
Tuesday, Jun 17, 1969
Yoko Ogawa
Writer
Friday, Mar 30, 1962
Yiyun Li
Writer
Saturday, Nov 04, 1972

View All Writer Quotes

Top Authors

Marcus Tullius Cicero
Philosopher
Mahatma Gandhi
Civil Rights Leader
Saturday, Oct 02, 1869
Friday, Jan 30, 1948
Carrie Fisher
Actress
Sunday, Oct 21, 1956
Tuesday, Dec 27, 2016
Walt Disney
Animator
Thursday, Dec 05, 1901
Thursday, Dec 15, 1966
Henry David Thoreau
Author
Saturday, Jul 12, 1817
Tuesday, May 06, 1862
Kanye West
Songwriter
Wednesday, Jun 08, 1977
Thursday, Jun 04, 2015
Edgar Allan Poe
Author
Thursday, Jan 19, 1809
Sunday, Oct 07, 1849
George Carlin
Comedian
Wednesday, May 12, 1937
Sunday, Jun 22, 2008
Aristotle
Philosopher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Walt Whitman
Poet
Monday, May 31, 1819
Saturday, Mar 26, 1892
Saint Augustine
Saint
Saturday, Nov 13, 0354
Wednesday, Aug 28, 0430
Oscar Wilde
Writer
Monday, Oct 16, 1854
Friday, Nov 30, 1900
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Activist
Tuesday, Jan 15, 1929
Thursday, Apr 04, 1968
George Orwell
Novelist
Thursday, Jun 25, 1903
Saturday, Jan 21, 1950
Oprah Winfrey
Media Proprietor
Friday, Jan 29, 1954

View All Authors

Ted Gup Quotes - Page 1

Picture Quotes Maker

Related Writer Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

Picture Quotes Maker

Related Writer Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page