A few days ago, a well-known documentary maker, Josh Fox, was forcibly removed from a House of Representatives committee meeting he was filming for an upcoming documentary. The hearing itself related to the infamous method of natural gas extraction known as “fracking” that is thought responsible for contaminating the groundwater in Pavilion, Wyo. The committee chairman, Representative Andy Harris (R-MD), apparently objected to the presence of cameras in the hearing room, despite the fact that it was an open hearing and the same hearing was actually recorded and broadcast on the committee’s website. Further, Mr. Fox had actually attempted to secure permission to record the meeting—something arguably unnecessary—but his requests by email were completely ignored.

I don’t need to point out that this is a gross violation of First Amendment rights, the filming of a congressional hearing for a documentary clearly being subject to the freedom of the press. In addition, access to the hearing itself was certainly not restricted, as it was freely watchable over the Internet. So why, exactly, was this filmmaker arrested?

Most disturbingly, this could represent the partisan fiat of the committee chair. Mr. Fox is widely known to be an environmental activist who opposes Rep. Harris and most of the Republican Party’s views regarding fracking, energy exploration and environmental issues. His expulsion could be a dire warning of the shift of political action in this country, in which officials abuse their position to silence their opponents and those with whom they disagree. According to an aide, removing a person from the committee chambers is at the discretion of the committee chair, a dubious excuse given that the committee hearing was essentially already public information, and that the committee chair could have simply asked for the camera to be removed or turned off rather than having Mr. Fox arrested.

“Fracking” is, a highly contentious issue, seen as a possibly lucrative new stream of revenue by oil companies and horribly polluting by environmental organizations. In such controversies, dissemination of information is critical, since it allows the public to know and understand the risks—in this case, to safe drinking water—posed by such a procedure. The very fact that an environmental critic was removed from the hearing smacks of corporate favoritism on the part of the committee chair. As Rep. Jerry Nadler told the Huffington Post, “I have served in the House of Representatives since 1992, and I had the privilege of chairing the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. In all that time, I cannot recall a chair of any committee or subcommittee having ever ordered the removal of a person who was filming a committee proceeding and not being disruptive.” According to other representatives quoted in the same article, registrations barring cameras do exist, but do not call for the arrest of the journalist, only the confiscation and depowering of the camera. Indeed, the purpose of such rules is not political censorship, but to allow such hearings to take place without disruption.

The arrest of Mr. Fox sets a dangerous precedent of political censorship, in which a reasonably powerful politician can attempt to prevent the dissemination of information at a public hearing to those with whom they disagree. No matter where you stand on this issue, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, this is a clear violation of numerous Supreme Court rulings regarding political censorship, and therefore of the First Amendment itself. One can only hope that this does not represent a worrying trend for the future.