Reading notes

[Antoinette Konz, a young education reporter for The Hattiesburg American] considered it a big deal when one of the schools on her beat, the Presbyterian Christian High School, invited her to cover a speech that was delivered last Wednesday by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. …

Ms. Konz and a reporter for The Associated Press, Denise Grones, were seated in the front row. They began to take notes. And when Justice Scalia began speaking, they clicked on their tape recorders. …

Justice Scalia, the big shot, does not like reporters to turn tape recorders on when he’s talking, whether that action is protected by the Constitution of the United States or not. He doesn’t like it. And he doesn’t permit it.

“Thirty-five minutes into the speech we were approached by a woman who identified herself as a deputy U.S. marshal,” Ms. Konz told me in a telephone conversation on Friday. “She said that we should not be recording and that she needed to have our tapes.” …

If this had been an old-time Hollywood movie, the Supreme Court justice would have turned a kindly face toward the marshal and said, in an avuncular tone: “No, no. We don’t do that sort of thing in this country. Please return the recordings.”

But this is the United States in the 21st century where the power brokers have gone mad. They’ve deluded themselves into thinking they’re royalty, not public servants charged with protecting the rights and interests of the people. Both recordings were erased.

I’m sure Justice Scalia knows this is not acceptable in the United States, but for some reason thinks he can get away with it. What is he thinking? Is he thinking? What is he ashamed of? Who is his master?

Of course this is wrong, but tell me in what way it’s not also stupid. I mean, there were 300 minds there, most young and in good working order, recording what he said anyway. What is there but downside to obstructing audio recording?