Yesterday I talked about the ever-shy Antonin Scalia and the fact that a federal marshal confiscated the tape recorders of two reporters who were covering a Scalia speech before high school students in Mississippi.
Today there are a few more details that were unavailable yesterday. For example, the AP reporter did not willingly give up her recorder when the marshal asked for it.
When Associated Press reporter Denise Grones balked, “the marshal grabbed the tape recorder,” Konz said, and erased the digital recording.
Konz said the marshal then removed the tape from her recorder and walked away with it. “I said, ‘I need that tape,’ she said. “I tried to explain there was stuff on the other side that I needed.” After the event, the marshal agreed to return the tape, but only after taping over the 40 minutes that covered the time of Scalia’s appearance.
Reactions to the story have been swift. They range from outrage to a suggestion that the marshal’s efforts on Scalia’s behalf may have actually been illegal.
“I don’t think any public official — and I don’t care whether you are a Supreme Court justice or the president of the United States — has a right to speak in public and then say, ‘You can’t record what I have said,’ ” said Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University and former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “A marshal is there for security, not to censor what a justice has said.”
And then there’s the Privacy Protection Act of 1980.
The PPA says, “It shall be unlawful for a government officer or employee … to search for or seize any work product materials possessed by a person reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast or other similar form of public communication.” The law also says victims of such official confiscations may sue the violators.
In light of the law, and this incident’s obvious conflict with it, a journalists’ advocacy group is raising some hell about this controversy.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said in a letter that the marshal violated the Privacy Protection Act, which says government officers may not seize materials in the possession of people who plan to distribute them through public communication.
“It is clear that the statute’s purpose is to provide maximum protection for the news media against seizures of work product,” the group wrote in a letter signed by Committee Executive Director Lucy Dalglish, Legal Defense Director Gregg Leslie and Kirsten Murphy, a legal fellow.
Justice Department employees should receive approval from the attorney general before ordering a journalist to turn over work materials, the letter said. Because the marshal failed to do so, her actions should lead to a reprimand or other disciplinary action, according to the letter.
“We also urge that all such officials be reminded of the important interests at stake when dealing with the news media,” the letter said.
That Scalia sure does have a nose for controversy, doesn’t he?