Open & Shut

A collection of notable quotations

From the Winter 2011 issue of The News Media & The Law, page 40.

“You talk about personal characteristics. That doesn’t mean the characteristics of General Motors. You talk about personal qualities. It doesn’t mean the qualities of General Motors. You talk about a point of personal privilege. It’s not a privilege of a corporation.”

— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia during arguments for corporate privacy case FCC v. AT&T. Scalia used General Motors to show that phrases using the term “personal” are rarely applied to corporate entities.

“To me, it’s stunning that they refused to hear it. It is tacit approval of the government’s tactic to silence me. I thought the court would stand up for free speech, but it didn’t.”

— Pain-relief advocate Siobhan Reynolds on the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear her case.

“We are not usually complying with the [Freedom of Information Act] statute’s 20-day turnaround. That’s correct.”

— Anthony Yang, Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General, in response to a question from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts during arguments for Milner v. Department of the Navy.

“We don’t know if they stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way.”

— Attorney Niles Benn on why his client requested 911 response times in Pennsylvania public records dispute County of York v. Pennsylvania Office of Open Records and Ted Czech.

“Although our expungement statute relieves a prior offender of some civil disabilities, it does not extinguish the truth.”

— New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Barry T. Albin in the ruling for G.D. v. Bernard Kenny and The Hudson County Democratic Organization, Inc., which overturned a lower court’s ruling that the use of expunged information could be libelous.