“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.”

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