Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Should there be cameras in the Supreme Court?

Of course there should.  And now there's an ad campaign about it:

A coalition of media, public interest and open-government organizations today launched an unprecedented advertising and petition campaign to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to open its doors to cameras.
The Coalition for Court Transparency was created to generate momentum for a change in the high court's long-standing resistance toward allowing broadcast access to its proceedings, even as the demands of the Information Age have brought greater transparency to other government institutions.
A 30-second television ad urging the court to permit camera access will air in coming weeks on CNN, Fox, MSNBC and CNBC. Its message, in part: “The Supreme Court’s decisions impact the lives of Americans everywhere. But only a privileged few get to witness history and see justice in action … It’s time for a more open judiciary. It’s time for cameras in the Supreme Court.”
For decades, the news media have politely asked the court to change its policy, and bills have been introduced in Congress to require it to do so. But with congressional leaders reluctant to intrude on the justices’ turf and prerogatives, the bills have withered on the way to passage.
The news media in recent years have taken a largely passive approach, waiting for younger, more media-comfortable justices to join the court. But that strategy has failed as new justices, most recently including Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, “go native” and suddenly oppose cameras, even though they favored the idea before.
The court has taken some steps toward transparency over recent years, including quick online posting of its opinions and oral argument transcripts. The audio of arguments is available sooner than decades ago, but not same-day, except in rare circumstances. Televising proceedings, however, have been a bridge too far, with past justices Warren Burger and David Souter famously vowing cameras would roll into the court chamber only over their dead bodies.
The new campaign coalesced out of frustration with the court’s resistance, as well as a feeling that the court would benefit, not suffer, from greater public exposure.
“There’s nothing the government does that’s more impressive than the high-quality debates that take place before the Supreme Court,” said Doug Kendall, founder of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a member of the coalition.

Here's the ad:

2 comments:

Rumpole said...

Yes

Anonymous said...

no