As PA Debates Liquor Privatization, State Muzzle Attorney's Booze Writings

Testy, testy

HARRISBURG — For two years, attorney Alan Kennedy-Shaffer has had an insider's view of Pennsylvania liquor laws. He's assistant counsel for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, the state agency that's dominated headlines as the liquor privatization debate swells and sputters.

But the PLCB doesn't want Kennedy-Shaffer writing about these laws in public, arguing it's a conflict of interest.

Kennedy-Shaffer, no stranger to ruffling feathers, said that's censorship.

"Public employees do not lose their right to free speech simply because their day job happens to be at the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, or any other agency," he said.

Now he's engaged in a debate with the state on that First Amendment right.