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It took us over 4 years of expense and hard work, but
finally the Commonwealth Court okayed our publication of the list
of names, salaries and so forth of prison guards and parole agents.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are rapidly dying in America. The conservative, right-wing government is steadily stripping us of all our freedoms. More than four years ago the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) along with Bruce Facer, a guard at the Frackville state prison, Leroy RObinson, a guard at the Camp Hill state prison, Gabe White, a guard retired from the Graterford state prison and two Philadelphia parole agents, Phil Formicola and Philip Carrol sued us. They wanted to bar us from publishing a list of all the employees of the Department of Imprisonment and the Board of Probation and Parole. The list was prepared every month by the state government pursuant to state law. The law, called the Administrative Code of 1929 or 71
PS 234, requires that the government publish a list naming each
state employee and reporting what department he/she works for his/her gender date of birth voting county employment county biweekly salary and other similar information. The list is available to anyone who wants to inspect it at the Pennsylvania State Library in Harrisburg and at other places. We wanted to make the list more widely available so that the public and lawmakers could see who these folks are, how very many of them there are and how much they get paid - way too much! The guards and parole agents didn't want to let the cat out of the bag. For a while Rochelle S. Friedman, a judge of the Commonwealth Court, went along with the guards and agents. After all, they're economically powerful and they represent a huge voting block. The judge stripped us of our freedom of the press and forbade us to publish the list. It's clear that the strategy was to wear us down and make us simply quit the case. How can a solitary woman and a tiny nonprofit corporation dare to face a huge labor union? The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) had refused to help us even though this is an important matter of freedom of the press and free speech. I wouldn't quit. I kept on fighting for my constitutional rights. Finally Judge Friedman reversed herself. She issued an opinion dismissing the suit against us. Since the judge didn't want to publish or publicize her opinion, we're publishing it. The case was called AFSCME, et al., v Comm of PA, et al., 149 MD 2001 and the opinion is available here. You may now get this information from us as well as from the State Library and/or by through the Right-to-Know Law. Let this be a lesson to all us little people, fight for your rights. Don't let bullies steal your liberties!
"If they find life on Mars, You are welcome to use or republish
any of our material.
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