In the Public Interest

WASHINGTON–What would Alexander Graham Bell think of it all? The new Dallas-Fort Worth Airport charges 25 cents for a local pay phone call. Telephone companies are determined to make customers pay for information calls to the operator and to replace flat rates with metered message units that the customer cannot verify. What’s more, telephone companies…

WASHINGTON–In the current debate over public financing of electoral campaigns, the issue is not whether? but which? For many years there has been indirect public financing through patronage jobs for “pols” who, in the words of a recent New York Public Interest Research Group study, received “much dough for no-show.” Last year’s Agnew scandal involving…

WASHINGTON–What runs on $6,500 a year and makes the powerful Georgia Power Company squirm and fret? It’s the Georgia Power Project (GPP) – a citizens’ group composed of a young lawyer, an applied mathematician and an organizer together with twelve reliable volunteers knowledgeable about the mysterious ways of a utility’s financing and consumer gouging. The…

WASHINGTON– If you believe “you can’t fight city hall” look into the activities of two citizen groups who disagree. Citizens Action Program (CAP) needs no introduction in Chicago. At age four it’s a household phrase in the Windy City. Since 1970 this group of citizen organizations, supported with the tiny dollar contributions of several thousand…

WASHINGTON–Both the media and citizens have an important stake in a Senate bill that comes to grips with the no-fault government and the bureaucratic arrogance it breeds to perpetuate government secrecy in 67ashington. It is S.2543 which by tightening up the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of 1966 and making that law more usable by…

Lynn Sutcliffe was troubled. The former Princeton football player and present counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, wondered who was going to represent users and passengers during the planning process to reorganize rail services in the midwest and northeast regions of the United States. Backed by subcommittee chairman Vance Hartke, Democrat from Indiana,…

WASHINGTON–To many members of the New York State Legislature, the image of the college student these days is not associated with the current streaking fad. Rather it is connected with an in vestigation of each legislator by students and their full time lawyers and other professional staff called the New York Public Interest Research Group…

WASHINGTON–Watergate-mired Richard Nixon is all but willing to sell the White House to big business to maintain the support of the large corporations. Earlier this month his operatives moved to make cancer, respiratory diseases and other pollution sicknesses hostage to his Watergate troubles. Over the strong objections of Environmental Protection Administrator, Russell E. Train, Mr.…

Washington–Stuart Speiser is a New York aviation lawyer who wants to abolish paper money. He believes that a cashless society would dramatically reduce much crime and corruption or at least make it easily detectable by law enforcement agencies. Coins and tokens would remain in circulation. A payment card system, keyed to bank accounts, would replace…

WASHINGTON–In the midst of an economy plagued by monopolies, cartels, zooming prices and shortages, no one in Washington is asking what will happen if there starts to be a consumer shortage. They say it can’t happen here, not in the good old USA. Why American consumers will keep buying and buying lust to relieve their…