I feel satisfied, even happy, when the journalist visits a public place and nothing happens. This informs me those particular public employees have a good understanding of the law and practice their authority in compliance. Did they gain this from their parents, their teachers, independent study, or training from the employer? I don't know. But it demonstrates that such a goal is attainable.Am I right? Or do you derive some deep, personal satisfaction and a feeling of unbridled patriotism, all warm and doughy inside from watching these 1st amendment heroes make the world a safer place for you to exist in?
I'm saddened when public employees overstep their authority. At times I'm angered when it goes haywire and threats of arrest are made and even executed.
I'm pleased when an errant public employee is corrected by a supervisor before it goes loopy. I hope the correction is a permanent remedy.
There are a variety of people who made this possible. I look back to Magna Carta, which established the foundation for the contemporary powers of the British Parliament and US Congress and legal principles such as habeas corpus. Athenian democracy too. Moving forward, the natural rights philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Rousseau. The colonial publisher John Zenger who won a freedom of the press court case against the colonial governor even before the US was founded. Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, etc. Citizen militia and soldiers who have fought. People who have challenged the overreaching authority of the State. And on it goes. These journalists are amongst a long line of people whose exercise of their rights keep freedoms relevant, viable, strong, and secure. If you don't exercise them, they atrophy. Am I better off because of them (and those I haven't mentioned)? Indeed I am."I have a 1A right to do this, the auditors made it possible"?