Once again, the public's right to know how well and impartially its judicial system works is under threat.

An American Bar Association committee wants federal, state and local governments to limit the public's ability to scrutinize certain arrest and court records. The panel believes ready access to court records has allowed some unscrupulous employers and landlords to unfairly discriminate against people who have been arrested for - but never convicted of - crimes, and some who have been convicted and have fully served their sentences.

The proposal will likely be considered at the ABA's annual meeting in San Francisco next week. It arises from the refusal of some individuals and businesses - potentially in violation of anti-discrimination laws - to hire or rent to some people who have been arrested or convicted in criminal cases.

It would immediately seal files in the cases of those who have been arrested but not convicted, or whose convictions were later voided. Those convicted of misdemeanors or felonies would have their records sealed after a "specified period" of law-abiding behavior.

We understand the laudable impulse here. In nearly every case, people who have "paid their debt" - as the saying goes - or even merely been arrested shouldn't be denied a fair chance at a job or a place to live.

But the solution isn't to remove this information from public view. As the American Society of Newspaper Editors commented: "Information gleaned from cases resulting in acquittal is not only used to review possible misconduct within the court system, but also is aggregated to review trends in criminal justice over longer periods of time."

With the ABA proposal, much of this would be lost.

Moreover, as we've pointed out in previous discussions of similar attempts to efface the past, these efforts are not merely wrongheaded, but probably ineffectual.

Arrests and convictions have usually already been reported in the media and in documents that would not be suppressed under this proposal. And there's no way to stop some clever, enterprising individual from amassing criminal records and posting them to a Web site well before the time limit recommended by the ABA panel.

Instead, we offer a solution. ABA members who want to help those who face potentially unlawful discrimination by landlords and employers should take those victims as pro bono clients, and abandon the campaign to shield records in criminal cases from continuous public review.

Why limit access to information that clearly serves the public when an answer to the dilemma lies in the lawyers' own hands?