thom think

savingpaper:

This is big news:

Beginning with the October Term 2010, the audio recordings of all oral arguments heard by the Supreme Court of the United States will be available free to the public on the Court’s web site, www.supremecourt.gov, at the end of each argument week. The audio recordings will be posted on Fridays after Conference.

The public may either download the audio files or listen to the recordings on the Court’s website. The MP3 files of the audio recordings may be accessed by clicking the “Oral Arguments” prompt on the home page, and selecting “Argument Audio.” The audio recordings will be listed by case name, docket number, and date of oral argument.

This is not as nice as same-day release, and nowhere near televising the arguments, but it’s a big step forward for the Court, scholars, amateur buffs, and the media. Previously the Court only released recordings of oral arguments to the National Archives at the end of each term, and if you didn’t have access to the National Archives, you had to wait until The Oyez Project could upload the arguments on its website. (And that wait could be a while: last term’s oral arguments still aren’t available.)

Now anyone with Internet access can become more knowledgeable of the Court and its workings.