A schocking story involving Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was reported several days ago and I have been watching to see if it is picked up and further reported by mainstream media. Today's NY Times has an opinion piece outlining the events, but does not opine on the true import of Scalia's actions.

Here is one of the most rabid supporters of state's rights using federal marshals to prevent reporters from exercising their clearly constitutional right to record a public event. This is right up there with the Bush government's attempts to isolate those exercising their freedom of speech (by protesting in public) by placing the speakers in restricted zones far away from the audience to whom the speech is aimed.

More shocking than the actions by these federal officials and agencies is the abdication of responsibility by the media to report on and fight these infringements and/or limitations on rights of speech. I am not the first to posit (nor will I be the last) that without an inquiring independent press, democracy cannot flourish - possibly not even exist.