Topic: The Law
You don't mess with Fat Tony. This is, after all, America... Well, it this case it was Mississippi, actually.
When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to high school students this week about the importance of protecting constitutional rights, he seems to have been being ironic. He does have an odd sense of humor, and you don't mess with him.
See this:
Media access limited during Scalia's speeches
Justice: Constitution 'something extraordinary'
Antoinette Konz, The Hattiesburg American, Thursday, April 8, 2004
The bare bones story?
Ah well, he may have had his reasons. He'd been stung before.While U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to high school students on Wednesday about the importance of protecting the rights provided by the Constitution, the recording devices of two reporters were confiscated by a federal marshal.
"You may wonder what makes our Constitution so special. I am here to persuade you that our Constitution is something extraordinary, something to revere," Scalia told students at Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg.
"Our Constitution is not only what started this great nation," Scalia continued, "but is what continues to make us one great nation. There is no other nation that can identify with those principles."
During Scalia's speech at the high school, U.S. Marshal Melanie Rube demanded that a reporter with The Associated Press erase a tape recording of the justice's remarks. Rube also took a tape recording made by a reporter with the Hattiesburg American.
Rube said Scalia had asked that his appearance not be recorded. But there was no prior announcement that electronic recordings of Scalia's speech were prohibited.
He did have to recuse himself from the Pledge of Allegiance case after publicly commenting on the lower court decision at a Knights of Columbus rally. So, really, you can't be too careful about what you say.
In a follow-up item in the Washington Post we get these nuggets -
Is this a big deal? Is this 1980 law really that important?After Associated Press reporter Denise Grones balked, the marshal took her digital recorder and erased its contents -- after Grones explained how the machine worked. The marshal also asked Hattiesburg American reporter Antoinette Konz to hand over a cassette tape and returned it, erased, after the event.
"The seizure and destruction of a reporter's tape recordings is remarkable, and I think it would be difficult to find any law that would justify it," said Luther T. Munford, a First Amendment expert at Phelps Dunbar, a law firm in Jackson.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press protested the seizure yesterday in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft. The letter noted that the deputy's action appeared to violate a 1980 federal law prohibiting most seizures of journalists' resource materials.
Maybe not. Reports next time could just use shorthand and take notes. If those are seized they can, after all, rely on their memories of what was said. There are workarounds. You cannot, after all, erase memories - except for EST, which, I suppose, Scalia could order in extraordinary cases.
Scalia has, a number of times, made his speeches off-limits to any press coverage. That's the safest way to make public statements about the law and constitutional rights, after all. No record - no tapes or notes or any paper trail at all.
This does seem odd. But maybe not. The idea is that our leaders are busy people and don't need to be pestered by the "little people" always second-guessing them.
As Scalia commented when asked whether he would recuse himself from the Cheney matter - should Uncle Dick be forced to reveal just who he met with when he devised the nation's energy policies - given that Scalia had just spent a weekend duck hunting with Cheney on the tab of a major oil company - "Quack, Quack." I think that was a no. He will not recuse himself.
Scalia cast the swing votes that made George Bush president almost four years ago, another fellow who doesn't like to be bothered with impertinent questions from nit-picking second-guessers. You get the idea.
Posted by Alan at 11:49 PDT
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