Baron's antics as front-page news in the C-J

From Harold Adams in the C-J...

Despite his best efforts to prevent it, U.S. Rep. Baron Hill has become a hit on YouTube after being confronted by an Indiana University student who was ordered by Hill’s staff to stop recording his town hall meeting on health-care reform.

IU sophomore Ashley Scott says Hill’s staff gave her permission to video-record Hill’s Sept. 2 town hall meeting at Bloomington High School North — then was told later she had to stop or be escorted out.

Scott chose to stay and later questioned Hill in a recorded exchange that has since been posted on the Internet video-sharing site by the National Republican Campaign Committee.

“Why can’t I film this? Isn’t this my right?” Scott asked.

Hill answered, “This is my town hall meeting and I set the rules.”

After howls from some in the audience, Hill went on: “Let me repeat that one more time. This is my town hall meeting for you, and you’re not going to tell me how to run my congressional office. Now the reason I don’t allow filming is because usually the films end up on YouTube in a compromising position.”

The NRCC clip of Hill had been viewed more than 170,000 times as of Saturday....

Scott, an IU language major, said she was at the town hall meeting to help a friend, journalism major Ashley Freije, tape and photograph the event for a class project....Freije’s professor, Claude Cookman, said federal student privacy rules prevent him from commenting.

Hill described the two women as “my political enemies.”...

Sam Marcosson, a First Amendment expert at the University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law, said Hill’s policy probably is on solid legal ground....

But he added that implementing such a policy is ultimately a political decision.

“That may be—and the voters ultimately will decide—an incredibly unwise thing to do, even foolish,” Marcosson said. “But I don’t think it violates the First Amendment.”