Chilling Prospect of Ceding the First Amendment

What does the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution mean to you?
This isn’t a theme for an eighth grade essay contest; it’s a question every citizen must answer. Why? Simply because there are threats to that amendment around every bend in the road. If you — we — sleep, and don’t take it seriously, we are in danger of seeing it shrivel to nothingness.
If you are like many Americans, it is quite possible you know the amendment is part of something called the Bill of Rights. Sure, it’s important, you may think, but not right now, maybe next week.
I’ve heard about challenges to the First Amendment, but honestly never thought I would be enlisted as a soldier in a battle to defend it, much less right in my humble hometown.
However, for reasons known only to the three-member Middle Township Committee, there it was on the April 6 agenda, a resolution planning to regulate still photography, video photography and audio recording of public meetings by that very government body.
Understand it was about 4:30 p.m. on April 3 when I read the routine e-mail from the municipal clerk that contained the planned agenda for that meeting.
I eye the resolutions and ordinances to see what may be the next tidal wave on the horizon.
There it was, a virtual 100-foot wall of water speeding toward me, or at least that was the way I felt.
I read the words, although they made no sense: Restrictions on still photographers to take photos at public meetings. There it was in black and white.
I must have read and re-read it three times before it sank in. Unbelieving what my eyes beheld, it was like finding a live grenade in your living room or a ticking time bomb in the bedroom.
This was lethal to my profession, to the right to ply my trade to record, with camera or audio, the actions of my hometown government officials.
It was like nothing I ever witnessed in three-plus decades in the news profession here in Cape May County.
My head began to spin. Blood pounded in my jugular vein. My heart raced. I was stunned and angry, almost as if I had been kicked in the stomach, then beaten with a bat.
“They can’t do this,” I uttered aloud. “They’ve got to be kidding. This can’t be real.”
The resolution’s language was familiar. It came from the state Supreme Court’s Cameras in the Courtroom, and hadn’t changed one iota since it first allowed news photos inside a courtroom.
It also called for using a camera that wealthy collectors and perhaps National Geographic can afford: Leica rangefinder 35-millimeter camera, (on eBay bidding starts around $1,500 for body only) and Nikon “blimps.” That latter are meant to silence a camera’s shutter, but are about as unobtrusive as a 900-pound grizzly bear in a bathroom.
Blah, blah blah it went on. Then the clincher: The need to get prior approval (routinely granted) from the mayor or that person’s representative.
Wait a minute. This wasn’t right, it just wasn’t right.
Then I got to the part about submitting video tape for the municipal clerk to copy for up to five days, and having to submit images for use by anyone who wanted them.
No. That’s against the New Jersey Shield Law for media people, like me. However, for the average Joe or Jane, who lacks such protection, what protection would they have? Only the Fourth Amendment, the right of private property, and being free from confiscation.
Had there ever been a problem at a meeting? I asked Joe Hart, who has been covering Middle Township Committee since I shifted into the managing editor’s chair.
No, he responded, not to his knowledge.
Indignant, I began to write a story for our Web site. It had to be posted late Friday afternoon, because the people just had to be made aware of what was intended for the Monday night meeting.
There it was, posted to the site on the home (front) page.
I could not let it go. The more I thought about the intent, the very intent, of that resolution, I found myself getting emotional, as I had not been in a long time.
All of a sudden, there was a “clear and present danger” not only to the local media (us) but also to the Middle Township public (our readers).
The Web story helped spread the word.
That “word” filtered to the American Civil Liberties Union, New Jersey Press Photographers Association, whose president just happens to be Gov. Jon Corzine’s staff photographer, Middle Township Taxpayers Association, and New Jersey Press Association’s legal counsel as well as to ordinary folks.
Some told me they thought I had placed a belated April Fool prank on the site, since the story was so unbelievable, irrational, and so unnecessary.
If you read last week’s front-page story about the tabling of the resolution, you read history. That was the first time I voiced a statement at a public meeting before the very body that I had covered for over 18 years that sought to regulate cameras and tape recorders.
The room was filled with people and cameras of all sorts. To its credit, committee tabled the ill-conceived resolution. I hope that it also read the mind of the electorate, and learned that some of us still cherish the First Amendment.
The aspect of losing that precious freedom hit me like a howitzer. I reacted, as would anyone who cherishes the freedom secured by veterans’ blood for over 200 years. To do less would have denigrated their sacrifice for us.
That’s what the First Amendment means to me. That’s why I stand ready to defend our right to report to you freely and unfettered by meddlesome officials who believe they need to fix something that isn’t broken.