Photographers Jailed for Pursuit

Solution to celebrities finding it difficult to trade $20 million a movie for the chance they will be photographed in situations not approved by their publicists: hog farming in Iowa. Bravo to journalist John Hiscock (“Constitution Suffers a Hollywood Mugging,” Commentary, Feb. 25), who had the extraordinary courage to question jailing two photographers for taking pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, as they drove their 3-year-old son to school. A free press cannot be a tool to be used by people seeking fame, then abused once those persons have their millions.

While exposing any person to danger in a public place should be questioned, the right of the press to be there should not. Fame and wealth in Hollywood is a self-inflicted condition. The world would not be worse off if Schwarzenegger never made another movie showing how to kill a thousand people. It may, in fact, be better off.

COLIN DANGAARD

Malibu

* Hiscock’s commentary is a superb example of blaming the victim. The issue is not which Third World revolutionaries emulate film tough guys, nor who controls access to celebrities, nor what stars must submit to for $20 million per picture. The issue is stalking and unwarranted harassment, plain and simple.

No constitutional amendment permits such crimes. And no right, not even freedom of the press, is absolute. Why is this so hard for some to understand?

THOMAS E. BRAUN

Littlerock, Calif.