Washington Post: PACER Plans to Restore Access to Missing Records By End of October

From Andrea Peterson at WaPo:

“The Administrative Office [of the U.S. Courts] is working to restore electronic access to these cases by converting the docket sheets in these cases to PDF format which will allow us to make them available in PACER,” said David Sellers, assistant director for public affairs at the AO, in a statement to the Washington Post. “This process will be completed in the four appellate courts by the end of October.  We are also working to provide a similar solution for the dockets on the legacy system in the California Central bankruptcy court.”
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…open data and public domain advocates reacted in shock to the removal — and online public domain database the Internet Archive offered to host the documents for free. Members of Congress, too, raised concerns. Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sent a letter to the AO pushing for the restoration of the documents, and raising concerns that Congress was not informed or consulted in the change.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) also expressed concern about the removal of access to court archives in an interview with the Post — and criticized the current fee structure of the system. “I do think it’s a little archaic the way it’s being done,” she said. “The idea that it’s 10 cents a page is astonishing in this day and age, and there are way better alternatives than what they’re doing.”

Read the Complete Article (865 Words)

Background

PACER Official Comments on Removal of Archives From Five Courts (August 26, 2014)

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Data Files, Interviews, News, Profiles