Hawaii State Senator on the 1st Amendment

Gotta love the people we elect to serve in the Hawaii state legislature.

Sen. J. Kalani English (D, Molokai-Lanai-Upcountry Maui-Hana)...told reporters...that the First Amendment protects the right to report the news, not to gather the news.

They have a fine grasp of the Constitution up at the Hawaii State Senate. One might almost call it subtle.

This was in response to a genuine problem faced by celebrities whose privacy is being invaded by paparazzi. Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler told the state senators:

"But when I'm in my own home and I'm taking a shower, or changing clothes, or eating, or spending Christmas with my children, and I see paparazzi a mile away at La Perouse (Bay) shooting at me with lenses this long, and then seeing that very picture in People magazine — you know, it hurts."

Tyler and Mick Fleetwood, the drummer of Fleetwood Mac, who has a home in Kula, asked senators to give celebrities and other public figures the legal right to file civil lawsuits against photographers who violate their privacy.

In other non-surprising non-news, Hawaii pols and judges understand that the state and federal constitutions, both of which specify that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed, of course empowers them to make bearing arms a felony.

Sophistication, thy name is Politician.