‘Gov’t secrecy breeds stupidity’

Published 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