The AP reports:
Two reporters were ordered Wednesday to erase their tape recordings of a speech by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at a Mississippi high school.
Scalia has long barred television cameras from his speeches, but does not always forbid newspaper photographers and tape recorders. On Wednesday, he did not warn the audience at the high school that recording devices would be forbidden.
During the speech, a woman identifying herself as a deputy federal marshal demanded that a reporter for The Associated Press erase a tape recording of the justice’s comments. She said the justice had asked that his appearance not be recorded.
The reporter initially resisted, but later showed the deputy how to erase the digital recording after the officer took the device from her hands. The exchange occurred in the front row of the auditorium while Scalia delivered his speech about the Constitution.
The deputy, who identified herself as Melanie Rube, also made a reporter for The Hattiesburg American erase her tape.
Scalia gave two speeches Wednesday in Hattiesburg, one at Presbyterian Christian High School and the other at William Carey College. The recording-device warning was made before the college speech.
Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said that it is up to Scalia and his staff to set guidelines for coverage of his events. . . .
If this report is accurate, then I don’t see any legal justification for the marshal’s demand, or the marshal’s seizing the tape recorder (which therefore sounds like a Fourth Amendment violation to me). To my knowledge, there’s no law — it would presumably have to be a Mississippi law — prohibiting tape recording of public events, even ones on private property. Even if the reporters had refused to abide by the Justice’s request, it seems to me that at most the marshals could have insisted (presumably on the property owner’s request) that the reporters leave the property. Any lawyers out there know of some specific legal principle that would authorize the marshals to act this way (again, if this is how they acted)?
Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer.
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