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Take Back the Law!

By Carolyn Elefant

PACER, the federal government's system for Public Access to Court Electronic Records, was originally intended to make court filings more accessible to litigants and the public at large. Now, roughly a decade later, Carl Malamud and others argue that PACER actually deters access by holding public documents hostage behind an 8-cents-a-page fee wall. So what can the public do to take back the law (ie: the judicial decisions and court orders funded by tax dollars and which comprise the body of law with which the public is bound to comply)? Some are advocating a gradual approach, urging the government to make a few improvements in the site that would improve site use and access. But others are pushing an approach that turns PACER on its head, which is exactly what The Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University is doing with its RECAP the Law project. "RECAP" -- PACER spelled backwards -- is short for recapture, as in recapturing the law. RECAP is a neat little tool by which the the public can effect this revolution -- essentially, CITP's (nonviolent) version of the Molotov cocktail. When a user installs RECAP, any documents accessed on PACER are automatically uploaded to...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on August 17, 2009 (boomark / email).