sudo echo "something" >> /etc/privilegedFile doesn't work

Use tee --append or tee -a.

echo 'deb blah ... blah' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

Make sure to avoid quotes inside quotes.

To avoid printing data back to the console, redirect the output to /dev/null.

echo 'deb blah ... blah' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list > /dev/null

Remember about the (-a/--append) flag! Just tee works like > and will overwrite your file. tee -a works like >> and will write at the end of the file.

The problem is that the shell does output redirection, not sudo or echo, so this is being done as your regular user.

Try the following code snippet:

sudo sh -c "echo 'something' >> /etc/privilegedfile"

The issue is that it's your shell that handles redirection; it's trying to open the file with your permissions not those of the process you're running under sudo.

Use something like this, perhaps:

sudo sh -c "echo 'something' >> /etc/privilegedFile"