Awards Granted
1991 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 1991
Karl Hess for lifetime achievement.
1992 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 1992
Richard A. Epstein for Forbidden Grounds and for a "lifetime of intellectual work on behalf of individual liberty and property rights."
1994 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 1994
Professor Lord Peter T. Bauer for being "an eloquent champion of free markets and the rule of law around the world."
1995 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 1995
James Bovard for "prolific writing about government abuses of individuals in their economic and personal lives."
1996 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 1996
Philip Zimmerman for developing Pretty Good Privacy encryption software.
1997 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 1997
David Kopel and Paul Blackman for No More Wacos. Bettina Bien Graves for lifetime achievement.
1999 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 1999
Chip Mellor and Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice, for their litigation and cutting-edge constitutional work in favor of economic liberty, property rights, and school choice.
2002 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 2002
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a tireless defender of individual freedom in all spheres during his long tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives. While his emphasis has been on economic freedom, he has also battled on behalf of personal privacy and civil liberties.
2004 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 2004
Jacob Sullum, author, journalist, and winner of the general award, relentlessly defends the rights of consenting adults to consume even potentially harmful products, such as drugs and tobacco. He is a consistent champion of all civil and economic liberties.
2005 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 2005
Libertarian/feminist Joan Kennedy Taylor for her lifelong devotion to liberty.
2006 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 2006
Historian Robert Higgs (general category) for his work on the reasons and methods by which government grows and usurps liberty, particularly how the state creates and exploits fear in order to expand its power over its subjects.
2009 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 2009
George Mason University economist Donald Boudreaux (general category), whose prolific writing has extended beyond theoretical economics to explore in popular venues the virtues of individual liberty, including some of less popular forms.
2013 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 2013
Founder and president emeritus of the Cato Institute, Ed Crane, in the general category. Crane is an icon in the libertarian movement. Under his leadership, the Cato Institute grew to become one of the nation's most prominent public policy research organizations.
2015 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 2015
Journalist and TV show host John Stossel in the general category.
2020 Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, 2020
A Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to Edward Snowden, a former U.S. Intelligence Community employee and whistleblower who in 2013 released, through journalists, documents that revealed warrantless mass surveillance of Americans' telephone records, the government's extraordinary level of access to the data of nine giant internet companies including Google and Facebook, and U.S. surveillance of phone calls by world leaders.
Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties
Annual award given by the Center for Independent Thought since 1991 to persons or organizations for contributions "in an outstanding degree to the cause of civil liberty"
Websites
CenterForIndependentThought.org - Center for Independent Thought
Sections include supported activities, the Szasz Award, news and foundation information
Articles
RIP Andrea Rich, by
David Boaz, 1 Aug 2018
In memoriam
As president of the Center for Independent Thought, the parent organization of Laissez-Faire Books, she also launched and managed the Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties and the Roy A. Childs Fund for Independent Scholars. CIT's biggest project was Stossel in the Classroom, which repackaged ABC News and Fox Business videos on economics and public policy by John Stossel for classroom use. The videos have been viewed by tens of millions of high school students – according to Stossel, reaching more people than ABC News and Fox News.