Quotes About Oversight

We've got to make sure tech companies - all of them - aren't taking steps that will place content beyond the reach of the courts.

The Y2K problem is not caused by technical limitations. We simply forgot to think of the problem.

For those broadcasters who are less than responsible, the FCC needs to have sharper teeth to enforce the law.

Put in the bluntest possible terms, what I discovered was that the U.S. secret intelligence community was collecting only information it considered secret, while ignoring the eighty to ninety percent of the information in the world, in all languages, that was not secret.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Trustees have the obligation to oversee the use of power in order to check its corrupting influence on those to whom it is entrusted, and to assure that those affected by its use are positively helped and are not harmed.

Throughout this chapter I take the cue from this definition—that the role of trustees is to stand outside the active program of the institution and to manage. What they delegate to the inside operating executives is administration

Some basic principles will need to be explicitly accepted, such as that no one, absolutely no one, is to be entrusted with the operational use of power without the close oversight of fully functioning trustees.

Imagine the big rating agencies as three competitive saloons standing side by side, with each free to set its own drinking age. Before long, nine-year-olds would be downing bourbon

If you ignore little things, they become big problems.

Washington must have seen that Hamilton, for all his brains and daring, sometimes lacked judgment and had to be supervised carefully.

Months after leaving office, he wrote to the Bank of the United States and admitted that he did not know his account balance because he had lost his bank book—this from the man who had created the bank.

Nonetheless, the producers, repeating past errors, exercised no discipline and drilled far beyond the system's capacity.

As Standard Oil's leading figure, he was the only person who didn't have any direct operational responsibility.

Rockefeller reviewed every bill that arrived at home and often patrolled the hallways, turning off gaslights.

Instead, statesmanlike, he applied himself to general policy and monitored the performance of lieutenants, who sent him copious reports about their activities

Harper was strictly forbidden from enlarging existing departments or adding new ones.

Pierpont handled the West Shore affair better than I could have done it myself.

Muller scanned one scrap of paper after another. Griezman's output was prodigious. Most of it was normal ass-covering bullshit. Trivia from below to be shoveled up above. Standard practice. Everyone did it. No one ever wanted the buck to stop with him. No one ever wanted to be at an official inquiry, saying, "Yes, it was me who judged it not worth passing on. So it's all my fault." There

Perhaps nothing in our society is more needed for those in positions of authority than accountability.

Who will guard the guards ? If we're the guards of society, then who will watch us and make sure that we're not dangerous?

And why did we need both an SEC and a CFTC—which often battled each other—to regulate the securities markets? Was the profusion of agencies grounded in some underlying legal or economic logic, or was it mainly about turf? The main answer was political: If you have multiple regulators, you need multiple congressional oversight committees, each of which is a gold mine for political contributions.

quis custodiet custodes?

quit custodiet custodes - ¿quién montará la guardia a nuestros guardianes?