Washington ? First Amendment experts questioned the legal basis Thursday for a deputy U.S. marshal — apparently acting on the orders of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — to confiscate and erase tape recordings made by two reporters invited to hear the justice speak at a high school gymnasium.

The experts questioned Scalia’s practice of barring recordings of remarks made in public, and whether the seizure may have violated a federal law intended to shield journalists from having notes or records confiscated by officials.

“I don’t think any public official — and I don’t care whether you are a Supreme Court justice or the president of the United States — has a right to speak in public and then say you can’t record what I have said,” said New York University Law Professor Burt Neuborne, former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “A marshal is there for security, not to censor what a justice has said.”

Alone among the justices, Scalia forbids television cameras when he speaks in public, and he usually tries to clear the room of reporters. He strictly insists, usually in advance, that his words not be recorded.

On Wednesday afternoon, however, no warning of his rule was given to event hosts or reporters when Scalia spoke at the Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg, Miss.

Antoinette Konz, a school reporter for the Hattiesburg American, said she received a written invitation to cover the event.

Near the end of the talk, deputy U.S. marshal Melanie Rube, who works in the Hattiesburg area, confronted Konz and another reporter who were taping Scalia’s comments.

“She came up and demanded the tapes. She told us that Scalia did not want the speech to be tape-recorded,” Konz said.

After an Associated Press reporter’s digital tape was erased, Konz said, the marshal removed the tape from her recorder and walked away with it.