I'm not at all hostile to "at no charge" access, in fact I fully support it and would be much more upset if the article had been "US Archives decides to charge

I'm not at all hostile to "at no charge" access, in fact I fully support it and would be much more upset if the article had been "US Archives decides to charge $100 entry fee" than I was about the actual article "US Archives won't let you in until you register and show ID and give some plausible reason why you need to look at specific things". I am pretty skeptical of "let random people touch difficult to replace things when you don't know who they are".