5 ms·

This is just one of many fights concerning free access to the law. There are easily three other lawsuits going on now that I can think of concerning the issue,

This is just one of many fights concerning free access to the law. There are easily three other lawsuits going on now that I can think of concerning the issue, and the underlying issue is pretty basic: the public should have free access to the rules that govern them. Sadly, there are a number of incumbent commercial interests in both the government and private sector that fund themselves by being gatekeepers. There is just a small group that seeks to free the law for moral reasons and a few more that do so for legitimate commercial interests, but they have an uphill and lonely battle. I fear that lawsuits like this are not going to be sufficient (judges often decide cases in the middle, not on absolutionist moral principles). The real answer will likely have to come from legislation, and free access to the law does not seem to be anywhere near the top of most politicians (or citizens) priorities.

Y_Y 8y ago
> Absolution definition, act of absolving; a freeing from blame or guilt; release from consequences, obligations, or penalties I've never seen the word "absolutionist" before. Should this be "absolutist"?
- adrianmonk 8y ago
  Or perhaps "abolitionist"? As in someone who wants to completely abolish the practice of forcing people to pay if they want to know what is legal.
- speedplane 8y ago
  Yup thanks, absolutist is the correct word not sure where absolutionist came from, but even looking at it now, feels like it should be a real word.
psergeant 8y ago
> Sadly, there are a number of incumbent commercial interests This sentence basically sums up all that’s wrong with America in 2018.
rayiner 8y ago
What will the legislative fix be? Governments can’t just decide to make these privately developed standards free for public use. So they can pay to free it up (costs the taxpayers money) or they can write their own standards (costs tbe taxpayers even more money). Someone has to bankroll these efforts. The way it happens now is that the people who need the standards (the ones building regulated products) are the ones that pay for standardization. Indeed, they might well be ASTM members themselves (the ASTM has 30,000 members, including producers and users). So you’re asking the public to take on a major expense to vindicate the abstract principle that, if some random person wanted to look up what the standard requires, they should be able to do so for free. That might well be what the Constitution requires. But you can see why nobody wants to do it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- paulsutter 8y ago
  If the standards are expensive to develop and maintain, seems better to require a license to implement a standard, or a fee to validate compliance to the standards. But anyone should be able to view them freely (if they are required by law) Keeping them secret to practicioners-only seems perverse. And if they’re expensive, this is the effect.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    To use an example from the opinion, consider the ASTM standard for diesel fuel. ASTM has been involved in automotive standardization since the 1910s and 1920s: https://www.astm.org/COMMIT/D02/timeline.pdf https://www.astm.org/COMMIT/D02/timeline.pdf. (ASTM was founded in 1898). The diesel fuel standard was first published in 1948. 42 U.S.C. § 17021, which incorporates it by reference, was enacted in 2007. That’s not necessarily true for every standard, but in general the industry creates the standard because it needs to; the government comes along later and mandates use of standards that have already become widely adopted and time tested.
    - 8y ago

Y_Y 8y ago

> Absolution definition, act of absolving; a freeing from blame or guilt; release from consequences, obligations, or penalties I've never seen the word "absolutionist" before. Should this be "absolutist"?

adrianmonk 8y ago
Or perhaps "abolitionist"? As in someone who wants to completely abolish the practice of forcing people to pay if they want to know what is legal.
speedplane 8y ago
Yup thanks, absolutist is the correct word not sure where absolutionist came from, but even looking at it now, feels like it should be a real word.

psergeant 8y ago

> Sadly, there are a number of incumbent commercial interests This sentence basically sums up all that’s wrong with America in 2018.

rayiner 8y ago

What will the legislative fix be? Governments can’t just decide to make these privately developed standards free for public use. So they can pay to free it up (costs the taxpayers money) or they can write their own standards (costs tbe taxpayers even more money). Someone has to bankroll these efforts. The way it happens now is that the people who need the standards (the ones building regulated products) are the ones that pay for standardization. Indeed, they might well be ASTM members themselves (the ASTM has 30,000 members, including producers and users). So you’re asking the public to take on a major expense to vindicate the abstract principle that, if some random person wanted to look up what the standard requires, they should be able to do so for free. That might well be what the Constitution requires. But you can see why nobody wants to do it.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
paulsutter 8y ago
If the standards are expensive to develop and maintain, seems better to require a license to implement a standard, or a fee to validate compliance to the standards. But anyone should be able to view them freely (if they are required by law) Keeping them secret to practicioners-only seems perverse. And if they’re expensive, this is the effect.
- rayiner 8y ago
  To use an example from the opinion, consider the ASTM standard for diesel fuel. ASTM has been involved in automotive standardization since the 1910s and 1920s: https://www.astm.org/COMMIT/D02/timeline.pdf https://www.astm.org/COMMIT/D02/timeline.pdf. (ASTM was founded in 1898). The diesel fuel standard was first published in 1948. 42 U.S.C. § 17021, which incorporates it by reference, was enacted in 2007. That’s not necessarily true for every standard, but in general the industry creates the standard because it needs to; the government comes along later and mandates use of standards that have already become widely adopted and time tested.
  - 8y ago