How can someone’s views on the First Amendment change so much in a year? Just last March, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was given an award for being a defender of the First Amendment.

Last week, he became the focus of a small brouhaha when he banned reporters from recording a speech he was giving on, ironically, the importance of the Constitution.

Actually, nothing appears to have really changed. At his speech last year, Scalia put a similar ban on media coverage, causing some to jeer at him being so heavy-handed at a time when he was being commended for upholding the First Amendment.

But the recent incident is somewhat more sinister: a U.S. marshal, who was working Scalia’s security detail, seized two reporters’ tape recorders and erased their contents.

No doubt an interesting scene for the audience who was listening to Scalia make such bold statements as, “The Constitution of the United States is extraordinary and amazing.”

The seizing of the tapes was completely out of line; Scalia never announced that his speech was to be kept private, and, more importantly, the confiscation of the recorders is a clear violation of the 1980 Privacy Protection Act, a federal law which makes such seizures by federal officers illegal without special consent by the attorney general.

It is too much to say that Scalia actually ordered his security to break the law (though he didn’t do anything to stop the marshal’s illegal action), but the bigger issue is Scalia’s questionable desire to keep his speeches from getting out.

Has the topic of the Constitution become so taboo that a Supreme Court justice — whose sole job is to protect and interpret the Constitution — is afraid to go on the record about it? What exactly does Scalia have to hide?

Most likely, he has nothing to hide. But his attitude that he, as a public servant, can keep the free media at bay should provoke concern from the public the he is supposed to serve. Until he resigns and becomes a private citizen, he should be comfortable that his musings on the Constitution be in the public view.

Scalia has positioned himself to be an ardent defender of the First Amendment. In the past, he has written dissenting opinions stating that the other justices have trampled the free speech rights of campaign donors and anti-abortion activists.

But he needs to work on his perceived hostility toward the free press. And he can start by condemning the actions of the U.S. marshal who made a mockery of the First Amendment.