Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is in dire need of frequent and repeated treatments of a Cluebat™. First he refuses to recuse himself from a case where the conflict of interest was obvious to everyone except elitist pricks like himself and now this:
...Scalia ordered two reporters to erase audio recordings they were making of Scalia's speech to a group of high school students in Mississippi on Wednesday, prompting protests from local journalists who said they were victims of official interference with the press.
…
Marshal Melanie Rube confronted the journalists and told them they must erase their recordings because they violated the justice's policy against audio- or videotaping of his public appearances.
…
"The deputy's actions were based on Justice Scalia's long-standing policy prohibiting such recordings of his remarks," David Turner, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said.
He didn’t charge admission, his speech isn’t copyrighted, and he’s a public figure making a public speech. Did someone rescind the first amendment while I wasn’t paying attention? Someone, please explain to me why this can be allowed to happen.
This really doesn't have to do with free speech at all. They were recording his speech, not expressing themselves.
That's not a defense of his policy or the actions of the Marshall.
Posted by: Jim at April 9, 2004 11:03 AMI have to respectably disagree:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
This obviously doesn't give the press the right to invade someone's privacy, but there is nothing private about a public speech.
Right you are, but it is still Scalia's right to agree to speak under certain requirements. Then again it was a public school so does anybody have the right to enforce the agreed upon conditions? Ah, hell. My brain isn't even working any more.
Posted by: Jim at April 9, 2004 11:50 PMI heard about this on the radio and one additional fact is that no announcement was actually made prior to the speech forbidding recording.
Scalia has also permitted SOME recordings in the past, but generally forbids video recordings.
So, reporters might conclude that they could record because 1) it was a public event where no conditions were established in advance and 2) there was precedence to think that the Justice might allow it, too.
I sounded to me like it was spilled milk and a case of DYKWIA.
Posted by: Trey Givens at April 12, 2004 10:20 AM