Credit where credit is due. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has apologized for the controversy surrounding a U.S. Marshal having confiscated the tapes recordings of two journalists.
“I have written to the reporters involved, extending my apology,” Scalia said in a letter to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
[…]
Scalia’s April 9 letter said he is “undertaking to revise my policy so as to permit recording for use of the print media.” The letter arrived today, said Reporters Committee Executive Director Lucy Dalglish.
Scalia’s letter to Dalglish added, “I was as upset as you were.” I kind of doubt that, but we’ll have to let that point go.
To be sure, this is encouraging. Scalia usually can offer a twisted and unpersuasive defense for the controversies swirling around him, but this one was hard to justify. He did the right thing and apologized. Fine.
But Scalia being Scalia, he couldn’t leave well-enough alone.
The same letter also said:
“The electronic media have in the past respected my First Amendment right not to speak on radio or television when I do not wish to do so,” he wrote, “and I am sure that courtesy will continue.”
Oh, Antonin, you had a perfectly nice letter going up until this point.
Scalia didn’t elaborate in his constitutional analysis here, but I find it impossible to understand how a public official, speaking in public, about public affairs, has a “First Amendment right” not to be recorded by journalists. This just doesn’t make any sense.
When a public official gives a public speech, and journalists are welcome to cover said event, there is no constitutional protection for the official to dictate the method by which reporters can give an account of that event. Scalia seems to believe the First Amendment gives him the authority to tell reporters with pens that their journalistic tool is acceptable, while reporters with tape recorders and/or cameras are violating his constitutional rights.
Such a right simply doesn’t exist.
Post script: Oliver at The Liquid List noted that if Scalia is in the mood to start issuing apologies, there are a few other controversies that warrant some regret on his part. It’s a good point.