An Orlando Sentinel reporter is claiming that members of Vice President Joe Biden's staff confined him in a closet at a Democratic Party fundraiser. Drudge Report broke the news, followed by a reports from The Daily Mail and New York Daily News. The latter reports:
Vice President Joe Biden is known for putting his foot in his mouth. Now, his staff is allegedly stuffing reporters in closets.
A Florida newspaper reporter claims Biden’s staffers placed him in a storage closet last week to keep him from chatting up guests during a high-priced fundraiser.
Scott Powers, a veteran political reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, was the lone newsman assigned to cover the $500-a-head bash for Sen. Bill Nelson at the home of developer and Democratic bigwig Alan Ginsburg on Wednesday.
But when he showed up at the posh Winter Park mansion, a "low level" staffer hustled him into a storage closet and stood guard outside the door, Powers told The Drudge Report.
Read more here.
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Did he find Tom Cruise?
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Even if Ginsburg had personally closeted the reporter, he'd be well within his property rights. Right?
Yes, because we totally believe that rights to property disproportionately trump rights to one's person, and that it's completely justifiable to lock someone in your closet when you don't want them at an event instead of just asking them to leave.
I would suspect that it was tradition and understood on all sides that reporters were to wait in their waiting room for the part of the event they were invited to cover. That's like an implicit contract.
"At times, these fundraisers are at private homes and 'hold rooms' are provided for pool reporters to wait for the speaking program to commence."
If the reporter had really wanted to leave the event, I'm sure he could have at any time. He could've politely pushed past the lady staffer or called the cops if she was a muscled nightmare. Surely the only coercion involved was the same kind used by ushers at weddings.
"Powers says the situation was never "rectified." Any time he stuck his head out he'd been shooed back inside."
Is 'shooed' code for threat of physical harm? I think the only thing violated here was the reporter's pride.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/03/biden-team-apologizes-to-reporter-for-sticking-him-in-closet.html
There's absolutely no question that he could sue them for false imprisonment. In most states one can use "reasonable force" to counter threats to their person, family, or property, none of which was present here. I cannot imagine that any court would entertain the argument that he violated an "implicit contract" and therefore somehow implicitly assented to being locked in a closet. The proper legal remedy was to call the police and let them know that a trespasser was on the premises.
No one said he violated an implicit contract. The reporter understood or was assumed to understand (accepted implicit contract) that he was required to wait in a separate room for the event. Those were the terms for his presence at the event on private property.
The fact that the room was a closet might have been less prestigious than he cared for, but it wasn't imprisonment. I'm sure he could have left the property at any time. What he could not do was access certain parts of the property until the event, a policy enforced by shooing, and that's what he wanted to do. He wasn't trying to escape. He was trying to trespass. You guys are misunderstanding the whole scenario, IMO.