Senator Leahy Asks Why The Federal Court System Dumped A Bunch Of Court Documents Down The PACER Memory Hole
from the bring-them-back dept
Last month, we were among the first to report that the federal court system's electronic document system, PACER, had deleted a bunch of cases. The folks who run PACER came back with a completely nonsensical defense of the move, claiming they were updating some systems and some of the documents were on older systems that weren't compatible. Of course, none of that explains why no one figured out how to move those documents to the more up-to-date system. Nor why PACER gave no prior notice of the deletion. Nor why it didn't even try to work with any one of the many, many public repositories of legal documents out there. Instead, the cases were just deleted from electronic existence.Senator Patrick Leahy is now asking why.
Created over 25 years ago, PACER is home to millions of court documents that were previously accessible only by requesting them from the relevant court. This often involved a trip to the court clerk's office and cost considerable time and money. While PACER is not perfect, it provides a significant benefit to the public: at the stroke of a few keys, the public can now search for important briefs, court orders, written opinions, and other related filings, and receive the information instantaneously. Servicing over a million users in the last few years alone, PACER has not only dramatically improved access to information, it has helped increased transparency of the federal judiciary.He concludes by noting that he urges the Administrative Office of the courts to "take immediate steps to restore access to these documents." Of course, it would be even better if they finally made PACER free and open to the public, but not deleting past cases would at least be a non-negative step.
Wholesale removal of thousands of cases from PACER, particularly from four of our federal courts of appeals, will severely limit access to information not only for legal practitioners, but also for legal scholars, historians, journalists, and private litigants for whom PACER has become the go-to source for most court filings. It is additionally concerning that this announcement was made without any warning to the public, and without prior notification or consultation with Congress. Moreover, the announcement did not detail what steps, if any, are being taken to ensure that these important case files are properly preserved.
We live in a digital age. Requiring requesters to travel to the clerk's office of individual courts to retrieve actual documents, or to submit an email request and wait several days for a response, is a dramatic step backwards from the centralized system that PACER provides. Furthermore, it is reported that requests made by email to individual courts could incur a $30 to $60 processing fees--a troubling increase in costs compared to the 10 cents per page that is currently charged to retrieve documents from PACER. PACER was designed to provide easy and affordable access to all members of the public, not just those who have the time and resources to submit and numerous requests to the courts.
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Filed Under: court documents, memory hole, pacer, patrick leahy
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I wonder...
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First Apple, Now the Fed...
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First Apple, Now the Fed...
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Stupid Govt Unionized losers
Hell, they might even get a bonus like the stupid VA Union pukes who doctored lists & killed vets to make bonus.
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You're dealing with the new government... All your monies R belong to them.
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Re: Stupid Govt Unionized losers
fwiw, talk to Congress about your VA problems - they are the ones who are responsible for that mess, not some nebulous "union puke".
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Re: Re: Stupid Govt Unionized losers
The VA is 80% unionized.
New York Post - "How unions share blame for VA deaths"
May 28, 2014
"The culprit is the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, the union that dominates the VA. For AFGE, the VA is a jobs program: The union wants more patients, bigger VA budgets and more staff — never mind what ailing vets need."
"Nine months ago, the VA rolled out a $9.3 billion program to refer vets needing specialists to civilian medical centers, if the wait at their local VA facility is too long or they live too far away. AFGE is fighting the program, even accusing VA executives of deliberately causing the backlog. “Create a Crisis and then outsource the work."
"They will dismantle the VA Healthcare System a brick at a time,” charges the union’s newsletter."
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