‘Gov’t secrecy breeds stupidity’
Published 8:52 am Wednesday, June 4, 2008
You tell us you like them, so we will keep providing them occasionally. Because you are newspaper readers, it figures. Here are quotations on the First Amendment:
“Any who act as if freedom’s defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.” — Dwight Eisenhower, 34th U.S. president, 1953
“I’m used to writing the most unpopular stories in the world. I don’t care what everyone else thinks. News is news.” — Susan Schmidt, reporter, The Washington Post, 1998
“In journalism there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right.” — Ellen Goodman, syndicated columnist, 1993
“A theory deeply etched in our law is that a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse rights of speech after they break the law than to throttle them and all others beforehand.” — Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court justice, 2000
“I’m a songwriter. Journalists say no topic’s off-limits for them; why should it be off-limits to me?” — Charlie Daniels, musician, 2002
“Ultimately, America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.” — Robert F. Kennedy, former U.S. attorney general, 1964
“We must be eternally vigilant to ensure that our fear of new technology and paranoia over school safety do not lead to a shedding of students’ constitutional rights not only at the schoolhouse gate but also at their own computer.” — David Hudson, First Amendment Center, 2000
“Government secrecy breeds stupidity.” — George Will, syndicated columnist, 1998
“Constitutional rights do not mature and come into being magically only when one attains the state-defined age of majority.” — Harry A. Blackmun, former U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1976