By restricting the right of public access to courtroom attendance, or by default, to official transcripts or news and other second-hand reports, the ruling below perpetuates physical, wealth, and other arbitrary barriers against public access that excludes all but a select few from gaining unmediated and unabridged information about the process as well as substance of American judicial proceedings. Internet broadcasting now makes it possible to lower, if not entirely eliminate, those barriers. The essence of the public access right asserted here is that the under the Constitution, the federal courts possess and must exercise discretion to take advantage of the “new technology” as far as necessities of judicial economy, order, and fairness permit.
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.