A First Amendment, If You Can Keep It

     A pair of journalists who covered a protest at a church have been arrested for it by Federal authorities.

     This is...problematic.  They weren't protesting; there are knotty issues with people showing up uninvited at religious services to make a political protest.  That's the kind of tangle that keeps civil rights attorneys gainfully employed, and one that may not have especially satisfying or universally good answers once it goes to trial.  Whose rights prevail?  That's a legal battle entirely within the First Amendment, the freedom of religion and the right to protest balanced, with freedom of speech as the fulcrum.

     But arresting journalists covering the event is clearly over the line.  News is news, and our country has generally recognized a right to report and to publish, to point cameras and microphones at events as they happen, to make notes now and publish afterward.  Arresting the people doing that is always questionable, and while there can be debate over how close is too close, that's not what happened here.

     Journalists aren't untouchable -- but the act of reporting is a Constitutionally protected activity.

     Or at least it used to be.