Empower Oversight, a Washington-based watchdog, has supported a motion filed by Roslyn Layton Layton, a senior vice president of telecom research firm Strand Consult asking the Judge in the SEC v Ripple case to unseal documents related to the 2018 controversial speech on cryptocurrencies by former SEC executive William Hinman.

The motion, dated Feb 21, asked Judge Analisa Torres to deny a Dec 22 motion by the U.S. SEC to seal some of the Hinman Speech Documents that Ripple offered in support of its summary judgment motion, arguing that the case for the public release of those documents “is particularly strong.”

“Both the First Amendment and federal common law endow the press and the public with a “potent and fundamental presumptive right” to access “judicial documents, —a right fundamentally rooted in the need for courts to have a measure of accountability and for the public to have confidence in the administration of justice,” the motion read.