For example, some newspapers have taken DUI records and compared them against the rolls of public school bus drivers, finding startling statistics that uncovered dangers and raised questions about how school districts check the backgrounds of drivers. Under the committee's recommendations, those reporters would have to obtain tens of thousands of paper records and do the research by hand — either that or let school children take their chances.

Would this kind of a project receive the OK from the committee? How about a project to determine which judges are the softest when it comes to sentencing certain criminals?

And if a newspaper asked for that permission, would the request itself become a public record, open to the scrutiny of competing news organizations?

We recognize that the committee appeal process is a step up from the first recommendation, which was to completely close access to most electronic records. But the idea of begging a committee for public records and justifying specific ideas for news stories smacks of prior review and censorship.

There is little difference between prohibiting a paper from publishing a story and prohibiting it from obtaining the information to publish the story after reviewing that story's merits.

Members of the committee have complained that access to electronic records would give large clearinghouse companies free mailing lists with which to annoy people. Frankly, that's a hazard of a free society. It is more than outweighed by the advantages of openness.

A handful of states already have decided to post their court records on the Internet. No committee. No prior review. Utah's Committee on Privacy and Public Court Records hasn't come up with one credible argument to buck this trend.