Commentary by Joe Reynolds

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's United States Marshals confiscated a reporter's recording device when Scalia spoke before a group of students earlier this year at a private college. Ironically, the topic of Scalia's speech was the importance of the Constitution.

Lacking United States Marshals, County Commissioner Judy Boggs called in John Staley, President of the Board of Trustees of the Worcester County Library to threaten my forcible removal by police from the library meeting room if I attempted to video her Town Meeting on October 23, 2004 for airing on OceanPinesForum.com.

Here's a brief synopsis of what transpired:

An elected government official, County Commissioner Judy Boggs, held a public Town Meeting to provide information to constituents about recent and proposed actions of the county government, and to explain her views on those issues. Boggs was acting as an elected official, not a private individual. The Worcester County government even sent out a news release announcing the meeting.

Two other County Commissioners, Tom Cetola and Bud Church, were among the audience of approximately 60 individuals.

The meeting was held in a public meeting room of the Ocean Pines Branch of the Worcester County Public Library. The meeting was open to the public and to members of the media.

Upon arriving I informed Commissioner Boggs of my intent, something we had discussed in person and via the phone on several occasions. Our first exchange on the issue was at the Worcester County Board of Education Candidates Forum at the library -- a function I recorded and made available to the public. She said she did not want me to video her Town Meeting as she "might say something off the record." How her comments at a public meeting might be off the record was baffling.

Afterwards, when we spoke on the phone she reiterated her objections on a number of different but nebulous grounds, none of which seemed to trump Freedom of the Press -- especially since the objections were aimed specifically at me and not other media outlets. At one point she even told me the meeting was private and she did not consider me a member of the press. I explained the meeting video would allow many more of her constituents to see what transpired, and my observation that she handled her meetings in a very professional manner -- to no avail.

After our brief exchange on the morning of the Town Hall meeting, I entered the meeting room and began setting up a video camera. Within  a few minutes I was approached by a gentleman who identified himself as John Staley, President of the Board of Trustees of the Worcester County Library. Mr. Staley informed me that Commissioner Boggs had asked him to be present, and he was there to inform me I could not use a video camera to record the meeting. He said his action was the direct result of a request by Commissioner Boggs to have the library prevent me from recording the public meeting. Mr. Staley, a resident of Ocean City, then went on to say if I attempted to record the meeting he would call the police and have me physically removed from the building. Staley's action was unilateral, at Boggs' request, and not the result of any decision of the Board of Trustees on this specific issue.

I agreed to comply with his order, in the presence of another reporter from the Ocean Pines Gazette newspaper, but made it clear to both Mr. Staley and Commissioner Boggs that I was doing so only under the strongest protest and I believed each of them, as well as the Worcester County Library, was violating my rights under the First Amendment of the Constitution and possibly Article 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. Other reporters were present. They were not threatened with forcible ejection from the public meeting if they did not turn off audio recorders or computers. Commissioner Boggs made a premeditated decision to discriminate against a single individual representing a particular segment of the media.

As with Scalia, there is irony here. One of the topics Commissioner Boggs had on the meeting agenda was a discussion of the proposed Worcester County Veterans Memorial at Ocean Pines. The memorial is dedicated to all who have served in our Armed Forces, especially those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect our Constitution and the freedoms we enjoy in our great country.

This attack on the Constitution by Boggs and Staley comes on the heels of another constitutional attack by the library. It involved censorship of a film about the Iraq war. In that incident, Library Director Mark Thomas is quoted as saying the library meeting space "is not for freedom of expression."

If that is the case, then why was Commissioner Boggs allowed to use the meeting room to promote her personal political agenda -- and make no mistake, that's a large measure of what these Town Meetings are all about.

Commissioner Boggs is a hard working, dedicated public servant. What a pity her political fear of being recorded at a public meeting should outweigh her common sense, not to mention what is hopefully her normal support of Freedom of the Press, open government, and our Constitution.