The Mississippi Senate passed a bill this week that, if made into law, will open a faucet on the hill of free speech, thus creating an ever-more slippery slope.

Senate Bill 2237 seeks to make secret the names of employees and family members present at state-sponsored prisoner executions. The bill would also make the provider of the execution pharmaceuticals a secret as well. Doing so would mean reporters present to cover the event would not be allowed to report what they saw.

The bill’s proponents have couched the need for privacy from the perspective of the prison’s staff and of family members who may seek to serve as witnesses to the execution.

Proponents point to death threats issued to prison staffers as the reason for cloaking the entire process in secrecy.

Such threats are serious concerns, which should be investigated fully, but to use them as an excuse for taking one of the most serious things the state does and plunging it into secrecy is disingenuous.

No specific threats have been publicly produced as evidence of a problem, however.

Saying they exist simply helps the case of the senators who seek secrecy in the matter.

Seeking to have a handful of Mississippi legislators trample on the First Amendment is troubling, not merely because of the gravity of what happens during an execution, but because such infringements are difficult to stop.

Capital punishment is controversial to many citizens. It has been for years and for good reason. Executing a human being is a serious matter — the most serious matter the state faces and as such deserves tasteful openness, which is what has occurred for decades before this latest bill was created to solve a big problem that doesn’t seem to exist.