Right to sue

By Staff
May 11, 2004
The Associated Press and the Hattiesburg American have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Marshals Service over an incident in April in which a federal marshal erased reporters' recordings of a speech Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave to high school students. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Jackson, naming as defendants the Marshals Service, Deputy Marshal Melanie Rube and unidentified John Does.
Both news organizations are justified in their outrage, illustrated by the comments of Dave Tomlin, AP's assistant general counsel: It's been more than a month since this happened, and we're still angry about it. People who enforce the law should know what the law is, and especially the basic law that says citizens can't be shaken down by their own government.''
The Marshals Service had no immediate comment on the lawsuit. For his part, Scalia has apologized for the incident and also vowed he would make it clear in the future that recording his remarks for the use of the print media would not be a problem.
This unfortunate incident occurred as Scalia addressed high school students on the values and virtue of the U.S. Constitution. Given the fact that reporters represented no threat to Scalia other than, perhaps, an accurate recording of what he said the Gestapo-like tactics of the U.S. Marshals Service are strangely un-American. The lawsuit seeks assurances that the U.S. Marshals Service will not interfere in legitimate news-gathering activities of legitimate news-gathering organizations again. That seems reasonable.