[SfN] Fwd: [Press]NADER AGAIN SINGLED OUT FOR EXCLUSION FROM PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE PREMISES

[Jim Buell]

While we were at the barricades in St. Louis ....
jb


>Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:21:21 -0400
>From: Tom Adkins <tom at votenader.org>
>To: press at lists.votenader.org
>Subject: [Press]NADER AGAIN SINGLED OUT FOR EXCLUSION FROM PRESIDENTIAL 
>DEBATE PREMISES
>
>Nader 2000
>Press Release
>OCTOBER 18, 2000
>CONTACT:  Jake Lewis or Tom Adkins
>(202) 265-4000
>
>NADER AGAIN SINGLED OUT FOR EXCLUSION FROM PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE PREMISES
>
>St. Louis, MO, October 18—Ralph Nader was denied entry last night to the
>campus of Washington University by the Commission on Presidential
>Debates, despite the fact that he had a valid pass and was scheduled be
>interviewed by WUTV, the campus television station.  This marks the
>second time in two weeks that the CPD, in association with local law
>enforcement, has unlawfully denied Nader access to a university campus
>hosting a presidential debate.
>
>“Once again the crooked debate commission run by Al Gore and George W.
>Bush violated my civil rights and the rights of the student television
>station by politically excluding me from entering the campus of
>Washington University in order to give WUTV an interview, which had been
>previously scheduled,” Nader said.
>
>“I had the necessary perimeter pass to enter the campus, which I showed
>to the police, and I was excluded even though others in my group with
>the exact same badges were allowed at the same time into the campus by
>the same police.  Once again the CPD has sowed the seeds of its own
>future political destruction.”
>
>Nader yesterday filed suit against the CPD in United States District
>Court in Massachusetts for unlawfully preventing him from entering a
>viewing room and conducting an invited televison interview by Fox News
>on the premises of University of Massachusetts Boston during the first
>presidential debate on October 3.
>
>“I urge an apology from Gore and Bush for the violation of my civil
>rights by commissioners who are under their influence and direction,”
>Nader stated tonight. “In addition to being excluded from an interview
>with the campus television station under the direction of Gabriel Roth,
>I was deprived of the opportunity to be interviewed on the premises of
>Washington University by other members of the media.”
>
>Nader was denied entrance to the Washington University campus at the
>intersection of Skinker and Forsyth at approximately 6:45 yesterday
>evening by a CPD official who would not identify himself.
>
>“The entire sordid episode, which adds an even greater stigma to the
>arrogance of power displayed by the Republican and Democratic parties,
>was recorded by two dozen radio, TV and print reporters who observed the
>entire interaction with the police, the campus police director, and the
>cowardly representative of the debate commission who refused to identify
>himself as he slithered through the crowd to tell me that I had been
>excluded and quickly slithered back into his lair without having
>identified himself,” Nader said.
>
>Gabriel Roth, a cameraman with WUTV, who was to conduct the interview
>with Nader, confirmed the unique treatment given to Mr. Nader by the CPD
>and law enforcement.  “Throughout the day, people with the green host
>pass (that Mr. Nader had) were able to get into the perimeter area in
>which the interview was to be conducted.  Two of Mr. Nader’s staff had
>the same green host pass and they walked right past the security
>checkpoint.”
>
>“What was even more stupid,” Nader stated, “is that the CPD instructed
>the law enforcement officers to give no reason for my exclusion, no
>legal grounds for my exclusion—a clear demonstration of arbitrary and
>unlawful authority.  I informed the police that they were being given an
>unlawful political order by the debate commission and that they would
>likely find themselves in court along with CPD officials.  The head of
>Washington University security did not seem comfortable fulfilling the
>unlawful task that he was given, or the manner in which he was
>politically manipulated for partisan reasons by the Gore/Bush
>commission.
>
>“After the election we will help establish a people’s debate commission
>which will destroy the monopoly of access to tens of millions of
>American voters that is now held by this corrupt, corporate-funded
>private company, the Commission on Presidential Debates.”
>
>###
>
>
>--
>
>Tom Adkins
>Assistant Press Secretary
>Nader 2000
>P.O. Box 18002
>Washington, DC 20036
>ph) 202-265-4000 ext.21
>fax) 202-265-0183
>
>Paid for by the Nader 2000 General Committee, Inc