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"Dancing In The Courthouse": The First Amendment Right Of Access Opens A New Round, Eugene Cerruti

University of Richmond Law Review

Shortly after World War II, concern mounted over the government's ability and tendency to institutionalize secrecy in government. The initial concern was with the anti-communist sleuthing of various legislative bodies which dramatized the power of secretly held information to control the public agenda of both domestic and foreign policy debate. From this emerged the call for a more "open" government and the political claim that the electorate had a "right to know"' the information acquired and relied upon by government officials. For the press in particular, "access" increasingly became the watchword, the icon, of the new era. The mounting pressure …