Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, a democracy depends on an informed electorate. If the information about how the government is being run or what the truth is about controversial issues is withheld from the public, from the people who are the ultimate governors in this representative democracy, we have a flawed democracy. When we only permit the print media to cover hearings, to cover important testimony, we are depending then on the news as filtered through the bias, the space limitations, the concerns of the journalist to get the information. We deprive the public of the immediacy, the graphic, unvarnished, spin-free version of the truth by not letting them see with their own eyes. But it just seems to me we have here a classic conflict of rights. One right is the right to privacy and the other is the right of the people to know. And in that conflict, they both cannot prevail. In my judgment, the right of the people to know is absolutely indispensable.”