I would ask that for this week you forgive me for straying out
of the mainstream of Queens
life and into a matter a little bigger than our small part of
the world.

For the last week, I have been locked in a battle over First Amendment rights with attorneys from the City’s Corporation Counsel.  They insist that we — or I — should not be privy to information that is discussed in private sessions involving only them, the plaintiffs, attorneys and the judge.  In these meetings,
these mouthpieces have been allowed an unfettered forum to bash the media, myself, and
our reporting outside of our presence.  What is said, however, is made a part of the record without an opportunity by my attorneys or me to respond.

This all surrounds that same lawsuit in which a woman has claimed that she was the subject of a harassment conspiracy that went all the way up to the NYPD’s chief of personnel.  Lo and behold, it seems that while this woman was on the stand — during her one and only chance to tell her story — two men allegedly flashing badges showed up at her landlord’s residence to demand documents related to her lease.

The city’s attorneys want all the details of this part of the proceeding discussed behind closed doors even though the subject came up in the open.

I have had to call in our own corporate attorneys just to have access to evidence that is a part of the public record. There have been file briefs almost every other day just to get what the Supreme Court has already guaranteed.

Why do you imagine this fleet of what I believe to be co-conspirators is working so hard to block the flow of information? 

Some of the disingenuous words I have heard attorney Andrea Moss use about the media were "biased," "slanted."   She has referred to me personally as if I were some sort of rodent, saying that I scurry while moving her fingers like a rat to describe my movement.

So the answer is either they really believe their own hype or they really don’t and are continuing to play the Corporation Counsel game of  "Smear to Clear."

I cannot imagine what one person with no money, power, or influence would do against a machine like this and the people who work for it. 

With virtually unlimited resources to investigate, harass, and cover-up, it seems the city and/or its lawyers choose to take away the only other right that people have outside of resources that combined we refer to as "juice."  They work to take away the right of a person to let other people know about what is happening so they can judge for themselves if they will help, stand-by, or hinder ones efforts. 

With knowledge, people can at the very least arm themselves against the signs of similar practices when things may start happening to them. People started figuring out that maybe you can fight City Hall.   The courts aren’t the only venue that gives "the people" equal ground.  The media is supposed to be the other.

People up against a bureaucracy don’t have press departments, or spokespeople who can spin their position for them.  They are supposed to have the opportunity to come to us with their own story.

But the same shadow warriors who try with a straight face to block marches and rallies simply because they didn’t agree with what is being said continue to wage war in every way they can against the flow of information.

Ms. Moss, if you have done your homework — as I’m sure you have — you and I both know the truth about the police officers involved in this case.  I was working the details of this story when you were still raising your hand in class, worrying about how you were going to get through the semester.

Don’t you for one minute think that any journalist will allow you to make your bones on the back of the First Amendment or through backdoor, clandestine acts that are somehow disguised as "judicial proceeding."

Your job is to fight for the pocketbook of the Administration. Mine, like most journalists, is to fight for the people and their right to know what public officials are up to.

The accounts reported on Gloria Gonzalez are accurate and I stand by it.

Before you throw your bias, mud-covered stone, check the walls of the house you’re standing in.

— Gary Anthony Ramsay is a weekend anchor and
journalist on the all-news cable station NY1
and a long-time resident of Queens.