Disappearing Documents: The decision to halt online access to federal court papers is...

Public information goes up, public information goes down. Just as government finally wakes up to the Web, just as journalists and others learn to use it, documents disappear from official domains.

This fall two events highlighted the importance--and challenges--of pushing the concept of "public access" to its fullest extent. One was an impromptu sweep of military information on the Web. The other was a carefully considered judicial recommendation that found some court records unfit for the Internet.

After September 11, government organizations like the Nuclea