The Test of our Times: on Government Reform


George W. Bush: Declined Congressional subpoena for White House advisers

[The Office of Homeland Security, OHS, a White House office, was the predecessor to the Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security DHS. As OHS received $20B, Congress requested details, and] the president prohibited my testimony, holding to the tenet that Oval Office advisors are not subject to congressional subpoena power under the theory of executive privilege and that if I were to go to the Hill it would set a bad precedent.
Source: The Test of our Times, by Tom Ridge, p. 92 Sep 1, 2009

Tom Ridge: Replace "need to know" culture with "need to share"

For as long as Washington, D.C. has been the nation's capital, a certain attitude has prevailed of "need to know." That is, you, as an ordinary citizen or a local official, don't need to know, and so shouldn't know, unless you're part of the inner circle and have the proper security clearance. There are legitimate reasons for secrecy, of course. The FBI and CIA, for example, would compromise many of their investigations if they revealed key details to the public. Even so, those agencies and every other one carry that policy to unnecessary and even dangerous extremes for reasons other than necessity--a circumstance that, we would all learn, impedes the real work of government in regard to homeland security. That culture was incompatible with the mission of the office and ultimately the new department. We wanted to change a "need to know" culture to a "need to share" culture.
Source: The Test of our Times, by Tom Ridge, p. 71 Sep 1, 2009

  • The above quotations are from The Test of our Times:
    America Under Siege...And How We Can Be Safe Again    , by Gov. Tom Ridge.
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Page last updated: Feb 25, 2019