
Senate Judiciary chairman urges PACER to restore access to removed case archives - privong
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/09/12/senate-judiciary-chairman-urges-pacer-to-restore-access-to-removed-case-archives/
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teachingaway
Our law firm wrote to the Chief Judge of the 2nd Circuit (in NYC) last month
asking for these PACER docs to be restored.
[http://adlervermillion.com/removal-of-public-pacer-
records/](http://adlervermillion.com/removal-of-public-pacer-records/)

Leahy obviously has more pull than our little tech law firm.

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tsaoutourpants
They get paid $0.10 for each "page view" (and a "page view" is an estimate of
how many 8.5"x11" paper pages would have been required to show the content)
and they _still_ can't be fucked to keep the archive online. Incredible.

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PhantomGremlin
Total fucking bullshit.

Here's a thought experiment: ask Google if they would do it for free!

I'd bet that Google would jump on it, just because. Okay, so they'd serve ads
for bail bondsmen and for ambulance chasers with every page view, but at least
we'd have the data.

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nodata
What is this incompatibility they are alluding to? If the data could be viewed
in the old system, it can be extracted..

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tfigueroa
I'm sure you are right, but the PACER system is a mess and certainly feels
neglected. Like the article mentions, it is not a unified system. Each
district, and each court, can have their own version of the system. Some
courts are on the same version but with custom modifications.

This tells me that the system has no real architect. The left hand doesn't
know what the right hand is doing. Migrating old data? The people in charge
don't know how to do it, and don't much care.

There's a lot of opportunity to fix this service.

~~~
DannyBee
To be fair, the AO has to deal with a lot of local personalities.

Chief judge of each court basically has their own say, plus whatever their
admins/clerks want.

There are 94 federal judicial districts. So it's like having 94 different
clients.

Nobody at the top (which is really the supreme court) is really willing to say
"no, we are all going go this way", because the people at the top are judges,
not technologists. There is a tremendous amount of politics involved.

All that said, i'm not defending them. THey have 164 people working in IT.
That's plenty to build a functioning database system. I've seen some public
judge apologists for the complexity of pacer: that nobody understands how hard
this is to build, and that it's outside the realm of normal technologies.

That, to me, just demonstrates the problem: They think their problem is very
very hard, and while not easy, it's not _that_ difficult. People build systems
that handle number, scope, and complexity equivalent to PACER every day.

~~~
jahmed
Judge Kopf has a really interesting post about this

[http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2014/09/03/the-latest-
really...](http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2014/09/03/the-latest-really-big-
screwup-with-pacer-and-cmecf-requires-a-quick-fix-then-serious-reflection-but-
not-utter-disdain-for-a-judicial-records-system-that-is-a-triumph-of-good-
government/)

~~~
DannyBee
This post is in particular, where i say "judge apologist" He thinks this is
really difficult and no techies understand. In particular, he says

"3\. For those who live in the IT world outside the judiciary, it is
fashionable to trash PACER and CM/ECF. The problem is that those digit-heads
are clueless when they get beyond slot A fits into slot B. Of course, in a
perfect world these systems would be elegant and the cost to the public would
be zero. But we don’t live in the pristine world of the computer geeks. They
know absolutely nothing about managing a large organization, and that is
particularly true for an organization that supports judges who have jobs for
life under the Constitution. "

This is utter and complete bullshit from top to bottom. It is a stereotypical
judge view of the world of technology. An old and outdated view that hasn't
been true for 20 years.

~~~
jahmed
Ha okay I understand. But you cut off the important bit:

As a consequence of this real life illiteracy, these outsiders have no clue
what a triumph these systems are from a variety of perspectives such as
internal management of cases to external judicial transparency. The will and
skill necessary to convince the internal stakeholders (judges and lawyers) to
adopt the concept of these systems (to let go of paper) and then construct a
dual public/internal system with few glitches is a major milestone in the
annals of good government.* This was a truly a monumental achievement. For my
money, PACER and CM/ECF should be here to stay despite the present debacle.

RGK understands that this is technically pretty straightforward but going in
guns blazing will not endear you to an Article 3 judge. At the end of the day
you are replaceable, they aren't.

~~~
DannyBee
"The will and skill necessary to convince the internal stakeholders (judges
and lawyers) to adopt the concept of these systems (to let go of paper) and
then construct a dual public/internal system with few glitches is a major
milestone in the annals of good government.* "

See, but i disagree with this. All it really demonstrates is a lack of high
level management and drive. The AO and the judicial council could have just
done this. There is enough political power and will at the top to accomplish
the goal. It just wasn't used. Because of this, to me, PACER is not a triumph
of good government, it is the "mission accomplished" of the government world.

It stays that way. Nobody feels it has to change, because they think they
already did everything there is to do.

