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Senate Judiciary chairman urges PACER to restore access to removed case archives

70 points by privong 12y ago

nodata 12y ago
What is this incompatibility they are alluding to? If the data could be viewed in the old system, it can be extracted..
- afarrell 12y ago
  This is an organization for which a coldfusion webapp to keep track of their rent from the GSA was a fantastic advance. (By the way, if you know perl and live near Boston, the district court is hiring)
- thinkcomp 12y ago
  It's not clear. The AO claims that the courts affected have systems created by "local vendors." It never appeared before that individual court sites were made by any other vendor than the AO itself, however, with some customizations for each court. Even if database engines or schemas differ, there's always ODBC. There's effectively no good reason why the cases should not be available on PACER. And there's also no good reason why PACER should cost $0.10 per page. Disclaimer: I'm suing the AO over this. http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northern-district-court/think-computer-foundation-et-al-v-administrative-office-of-the-united-states-courts-et-al/ http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northe...
- tfigueroa 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.
    - fleitz 12y ago
      So they'd need someone with a scanner in 94 different jurisdictions?
      - nodata 12y ago
        Good point. I'd chip in fifty bucks for a ScanSnap if someone can supply the documents. We can host them on the Internet Archive.
    - jahmed 12y ago
      Judge Kopf has a really interesting post about this 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/ http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2014/09/03/the-latest-really...
      - DannyBee 12y ago
        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.
teachingaway 12y ago
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.
tsaoutourpants 12y ago
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.
PhantomGremlin 12y ago
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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70 points by privong 12y ago

nodata 12y ago

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

afarrell 12y ago
This is an organization for which a coldfusion webapp to keep track of their rent from the GSA was a fantastic advance. (By the way, if you know perl and live near Boston, the district court is hiring)
thinkcomp 12y ago
It's not clear. The AO claims that the courts affected have systems created by "local vendors." It never appeared before that individual court sites were made by any other vendor than the AO itself, however, with some customizations for each court. Even if database engines or schemas differ, there's always ODBC. There's effectively no good reason why the cases should not be available on PACER. And there's also no good reason why PACER should cost $0.10 per page. Disclaimer: I'm suing the AO over this. http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northern-district-court/think-computer-foundation-et-al-v-administrative-office-of-the-united-states-courts-et-al/ http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northe...
tfigueroa 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
  - fleitz 12y ago
    So they'd need someone with a scanner in 94 different jurisdictions?
    - nodata 12y ago
      Good point. I'd chip in fifty bucks for a ScanSnap if someone can supply the documents. We can host them on the Internet Archive.
  - jahmed 12y ago
    Judge Kopf has a really interesting post about this 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/ http://herculesandtheumpire.com/2014/09/03/the-latest-really...
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      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.

teachingaway 12y ago

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.

tsaoutourpants 12y ago

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.

PhantomGremlin 12y ago

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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