Public Right Quotes

Socialism needs to pull down wealth; liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests, Liberalism would preserve [them] ... by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the preeminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks ... to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capitalism; Liberalism attacks monopoly.

When the Vice President of the United States shoots somebody, the public has the right to know.

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.

The basic idea of defamation law is simple. It is an attempt to balance the private right to protect one's reputation with the public right to freedom of speech …. defamation law is often used by the rich and powerful to deter criticisms. It is seldom helpful to ordinary people whose reputations are attacked unfairly.

A democratic state must feel before it can see; that is what makes it slow to act. But the people, at last, will be right.

While people are free to draw different conclusions from the facts, there should be no debate over whether the American public is entitled to have all of the facts.

The American people have a right to know the air they breathe is safe.

In a democracy, the public has a right to know not only what the government decides, but why and by what process.

We should certainly declassify any information that we know that the enemy knows. At that point it is only the American people who are in the dark.

The public has every right to see Robert S. Mueller III's conclusions. Absolutely nothing in the law or the regulations prevents the report from becoming public. Indeed, the relevant sources of law give Attorney General P. William Barr all the latitude in the world to make it public.

The American public has a right to know what's going on.

Journalists justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about freedom of speech and ‘the public’s right to know’; the least talented talk about Art; the seemliest murmur about earning a living.

The public has a right to art ... Art is for everybody.

Maybe politically it wasn't wise but when people have different view points I think the public has a right to hear it and the public has a right to make decisions based on those view points.

Journalists play God when they decide for their readers when to hide information from them. Frequently, those choices are unavoidable.

It's my father's legacy. My father's view was that the public is the employer of these government employees and has the right to know what they're up to.

Besides a happy policy as to civil government, it is necessary to institute a system of law and jurisprudence founded in justice, equity, and public right.

Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our Government is doing in our name. If there's a criticism to be made today, it's that the press isn't doing enough to put the pressure on the government to provide information.

Even if you assume presidents were democratically elected they still have no right to keep secrets from the American people.

The government's assertion that it must be unhindered in protecting our security can camouflage the desire to increase Executive power, while the press's cry of the public's right to know can mask a quest for competitive advantage or a hidden animus. Neither the need to protect our security nor the public's right to know is a blank check.