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CIVIL RIGHTS

"If we are to preserve our democracy, these are not times to retreat, but to advance the cause of civil rights."             

The USA v. NJ (1981) Judge H. Lee Sarokin

LEGAL CORRUPTION

"Private gain from public life at the national level is legal and not uncommon in the United States, and those in or  around government officialdom in Washington would be shocked if anyone  had the temerity to refer to it as 'corruption'.  It's rather just 'business' and 'how things work'... There is no no shortage of evidence that, despite the annual applause for all of the anti-corruption mechanisms in place in these United States, so-called legal corruption abounds. What is perhaps more interesting is the lack of candor in public discourse today--indeed, the palpable denial, the false conceit--about the state of corruption in America.  Our politicians perpetually lie to us and we so badly want to believe them." 

from: "A Climate of Legal Corruption",  by Charles Lewis, former Executive Director of The Center for Public Integrity. www.publicintegrity.org

A FREE PRESS

"In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy.  The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.  The Government's power to censure the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government.  The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.  Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.  And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell."                                     

Justice Black, NYT v. U.S. 403 US 713.

Updated  April 01, 2005

URL:  www.thecitizenfsr.org                     SM 2000-2011

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