Bastion of the First Amendment?

With such a variety of protests — climate change, World AIDS Day, even Uzbek refugees — in front of the White House yesterday, it'd be nice to report that Lafayette Park and the closed stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue are a bastion of the First Amendment.

But it's not always the case. My colleague Mannie, a White House news photographer, snapped an image of a couple protesters in the street that happened to include a uniformed member of the Secret Service in the distance. The officer approached Manny, demanded he delete the photo, and then actually chased him a little ways and tried to snatch his camera away. What was the officer — who later refused to identify himself — thinking? If he'd managed to grab the camera, what would he have done with it? Hide it like the squirrels hide the nuts in Lafayette Park?

Anyway, Mannie, after demanding to know if he was under arrest, escaped and went back to his job. Later, when the incident was discussed with a sergeant with the Secret Service, the sergeant affirmed that police have no right to order people to delete photos, or to control what is photographed. He mentioned that this was a new part of their training. (I thought the concept was pretty well established in 1791, the year the Bill of Rights was ratified.)

Incidents like this have been reported around town, in places like Union Station, the Metro, downtown streets. But it was unusual to see it happen with the Secret Service, normally a highly professional, and even mellow, group — the same officers who calmly watched AIDS activists roll a coffin up the street just a half hour later.

UPDATE -- PDN Pulse has interviewed the photographer, and posted the photo the officer ordered deleted: http://bit.ly/gluUgj. And as they point out -- the photographer involved is the same whose photo of President Obama was the basis for the famous "Hope" poster!

But tell us what you really think, Mr. Feinberg

Kenneth Feinberg has had an amazing career as a "special master" -- an expert entrusted to make decisions on financial and other matters in a legal dispute. He's served as the Obama administration's "pay czar," helped resolve the value of the famed Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination and of Holocaust slave labor, and administered the 9/11 victims fund.

And now he's in charge of divying up the $20 billion BP has surrendered to recompense victims of the oil spill. (I photographed him here testifying on this before the House Small Business Committee.) What's it worth if your seafood business is destroyed by the spill, or your beachfront rental property becomes a depository for tar balls? Or suppose the property is just fine, the beach pristine, but nobody's renting because it's on the gulf coast? It's going to be the job of Mr. Feinberg, this disaster's King-Solomon-in-Residence, to figure it all out.

Supreme Court cyclist

I'd heard that Walter Dellinger, a constitutional law professor and leading Supreme Court advocate, often biked to the court when he would argue cases. So when the DC gun-control case went before the court, a case Delllinger would argue, I emailed him the day before oral arguments to ask whether he might be biking the next day, and whether I could take some photos.

Dellinger called me just minutes after I sent the email. I was suprised - lawyers preparing for a Supreme Court case often go into a special intense preparation zone in the days or weeks before arguments, somewhat like a presidential candidate before a debate. Maybe Dellinger, always gracious, was glad for the diversion. But he said he'd be glad to work with me, and we agreed to meet outside his office early the next morning.

The photography was a blast. I'd photograph him pedaling, then hop on my own bike and speed ahead to get positioned for the next shot. I've never raced someone up Capitol Hill before for a photo. (I was doing maybe 2.5 mph up the Hill, just ahead of Dellinger's 2.25.)

The photos have run in publications from DC to San Francisco, and several blogs too. Now Dellinger and his unusual Supreme Court pre-game warmup have made bicycling.com, along with an excellent interview/story by David L'Heureux. It's worth checking out just for the tale of how Janet Reno once found a forceful way to make sure Dellinger used a bike helmet. See the story at: http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s-3-583-17104-1,00.html.