Coast Guard to make its court-martial docket publicly available on the Internet

We previously looked at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's white paper decrying limits on the availability of information about upcoming courts-martial. We also looked here at a disturbing example of information about a Navy court-martial not being relayed to reporters despite apparent assurances that such information would be provided.

Now the Reporters Committee announces here that the Judge Advocate General of the Coast Guard, Rear Admiral William D. Baumgartner, "has agreed to post all Coast Guard court martial dockets online in early 2009." The announcement indicated that "only the Army currently provides centralized online access to its dockets."

With the Coast Guard and Army making their dockets publicly available on the Internet, it will be interesting to see if the Air Force and the Department of the Navy follow suit.