Russ Feingold: “I am proud to once again be an original cosponsor of the Grassley-Schumer bill on cameras in the courtroom. I strongly…”

“I am proud to once again be an original cosponsor of the Grassley-Schumer bill on cameras in the courtroom. I strongly support allowing cameras in federal courtrooms for a simple reason. Trials and court hearings are public proceedings. They are paid for by the taxpayers. Except in the most rare and unusual circumstances, the public has a right to see what happens in those proceedings. We have a long tradition of press access to trials, but in this day and age, it is no longer sufficient to be able to read in the morning paper what happened in a trial the day before. The public wants to see for itself what goes on in our courts of law, and I think it has a right to do so. Experience in the state courts--and the vast majority of states now allow trials to be televised--has shown that it is possible to permit the public to see trials on television without compromising the rights of a defendant to a fair trial or the safety or privacy interests of witnesses or jurors. Concerns about cameras interfering with the fair administration of justice in this country I believe are overstated.”