Yesterday, the new head of the DHS, Michael Chertoff, visited Arizona for a first-hand look at border issues and gave a press conference.

Chris Simcox, one of the organizers of the Minuteman Project, was specifically denied access to the press conference. Neither he nor the Sierra Vista Herald have been able to get an exact answer why. Simcox is also the owner, editor, and a reporter for the Tombstone Tumbleweed, which is a real albeit very small circulation newspaper. Other members of the Arizona press were, of course, allowed into the press conference as the quotes in the previous post shows.

The Herald has more in "Simcox denied access to press conference". It says Simcox is considering contacting the American Civil Liberties Union for help, but I don't know exactly how to interpret that.

The order to exclude Simcox reportedly came from Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief Michael Nicely. A few days ago there were unconfirmed reports that Nicely had tried to make it look like the MMP was not as successful as it was. This is described here, which includes this:

...Congressman Tancredo, citing an email he received from what he calls "a very credible source within the U.S. Border Patrol," said that Chief Nicely, who, once again, is the Tucson Sector Chief, issued a directive insisting that "apprehensions even are below that that were in progress during the minutemen presence on the border, for the purpose of trying to say, or to prove their point that the Minutemen’s (sic) did nothing, didn’t help, really had no effect on apprehensions."

UPDATE: The WashTimes has more in "Homeland Security bars organizer of Minutemen":

Chief Nicely has said the Minutemen's efforts against illegal immigration were "negligible" and they should leave border enforcement "to the professionals." ...Border Patrol spokesman Jose Garza in Tucson confirmed that Mr. Simcox was excluded from the press conference on the orders of Chief Nicely, but said it was "because of security reasons." ...He declined to elaborate and would not comment on whether Mr. Simcox was the potential security threat or whether anyone had made a threat against him...