Post by Bill SchenleyPost by TerrymelinPost by Bill SchenleyI understand. You mean because the Bush
administration has been a tad lax on *completely*
destroying the First Amendment. Don't worry,
Dolores ... they're about to pick up the pace ...
Yep, they've done such a good job that you're not
even allowed to post stuff like the above, are you?
As I wrote ... they have been a "tad lax" in *completely*
destroying the First Amendment ... but don't worry ...
November is just around the corner. They will pick up the
pace before the election.
Marshal Orders Tapes Of Scalia Talk Erased
Reporters Told Justice Bars Recording
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 9, 2004; Page A02
A federal marshal guarding Supreme Court Justice Antonin
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.
As Scalia was addressing an afternoon assembly at the
Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg, Deputy
U.S. 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.
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 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. But, he added: "Justice Scalia did not
instruct the deputy to take that action."
Editors at both the Hattiesburg American and the Jackson
bureau of the AP said their reporters had not been told
ahead of time that they could not record at the high school.
"I find it very curious where a Supreme Court justice spends
a significant amount of time talking about the Constitution,
he seems to omit the part about freedom of the press," said
Jon Broadbooks, executive editor of the American. "What
authority does the marshal service have to try to confiscate
reporters' tape recorders?"
Supreme Court spokesman Ed Turner said that Scalia was
unavailable for comment. "The justice generally prefers not
to have audio or video recordings of his remarks," Turner
said.
Like the recent debate over Scalia's refusal to recuse
himself after a duck-hunting trip with Vice President Cheney
while Cheney is a named party in a pending case at the
court, the incident in Mississippi drew attention to the
nearly complete autonomy each justice enjoys in deciding
matters that bear on how he or she is perceived by the
public. While some justices welcome television coverage of
their speeches, others shun it.
But confrontations between the media and justices' security
details, which are far smaller than those that surround the
president and some Cabinet officials, are rare. Members of
the court are guarded by Supreme Court police while in
Washington, and by U.S. marshals when they travel outside
the capital.
Deputy Marshal Rube is based at the Marshals Services'
Hattiesburg sub-office, Turner said. She had been instructed
to enforce Scalia's policy during preparations for his
visit, Turner added.
The incident at the high school followed a clash between
Scalia and the media earlier in the day at William Carey
College, a Baptist institution where Louis Griffin, with
whom Scalia regularly hunts turkeys, is a trustee.
College officials announced before Scalia's speech to a
large assembly that it could not be recorded. But they
invited the local media, including television reporters, to
talk with Scalia at a reception afterwards.
When Scalia saw cameras at the reception, however, he
informed the college's president, Larry W. Kennedy, that he
did not give interviews, and Kennedy asked the journalists
to leave, Kennedy said in a telephone interview.
Both of the reporters whose recordings were erased in the
afternoon were at the morning event when Scalia's ban was
announced.
But, said Ron Harrist, news editor of the AP's Jackson
bureau, the afternoon speech "was a separate event at the
high school. There was no announcement not to do it. We feel
like it [the order to erase] was unjustified. Our reporter
was strictly using a recorder to make sure she got what he
had to say correct."