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Was there ever an argument beyond 'information wants to be free' to this? Let's say PACER docs were being pulled and hosted elsewhere. What if case informatio

by nutate 12y ago

Was there ever an argument beyond 'information wants to be free' to this? Let's say PACER docs were being pulled and hosted elsewhere. What if case information was updated as per part of the legal process, aka person X is now innocent. How does this change to past case documents get propagated to the 'illegal' mirror? This is interesting because I think we do want an authoritative document store and that, yes, we hence need to pay for its upkeep. So if he had mirrored and hosted all of these cases, they would've been merely snapshots of past history, not the curated corpus that PACER has. The same could be said of scientific papers where large retractions are handled by the journals, but may be lost by some mirrors. Information quality, provenance and current validity is more important than the trope of 'wanting to be free.' Once information passes into the 'historical' realm, perhaps it should/must be free, but when we are in the malleable phase it's irresponsible to 'mirror once' without knowing how to get pushed (or pull) updates. Look at how the Linux kernel mirror system works, push mirroring, etc. The scrape method doesn't pass the smell test if you really want to provide a service beyond point in time archiving (aka archive.org). Regarding depression, suicide and unfair persecution I'll withhold comment.

pmorici 12y ago
I've been following a legal case using pacer for the past year and if you something is added or updated on a case an email notice gets sent out to the people who have registered as interested parties with a link to the document and you get one free download. A pretty simple way to bridge pacer to a system that doesn't suck would be to register some kind of bot to get the email notices from each case and download and file each document as it becomes available.
hackuser 12y ago
> Was there ever an argument beyond 'information wants to be free' to this? I can think of four: 1) The information is vital to government and to justice, both personally (if you are party to or have a stake in the case) and as a public affairs issue; its availability should not be restricted in any way, and especially not restricted to those who can afford to pay. 2) In principle, access to the courts should not discriminate based on any factor, especially wealth. 3) The information is a product of taxpayer-funded activities and therefore should be public and free. 4) 8 cents/page for downloaded data is ridiculous; what if HN charged us 8 cents/page? Does anyone know what Swartz' actual arguments were?
- josaka 12y ago
  The strongest reason, to my mind, is that we have a common law system, so the public can't fully and accurately comply with the law without access to the court records upon which the common law rulings are based.
- McDoku 12y ago
  Fundamentally, I think you are both right... The complaint is that the current system of document storage is not good enough to balance private review and public disclosure. Restriction should not be withholding. It is like eating a pizza pie before it cools. Burning the roof your your mouth sucks... Quality of information is as important as availability. This is a job for a lever.
- thinkcomp 12y ago
  Yes. The argument is that the E-Government Act of 2002 makes the judiciary's policies regarding PACER illegal. See: http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=84 http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=84 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...
mrgriscom 12y ago
The argument is this information is free. Products of the federal government are in the public domain, so to restrict access to it so aggressively is unethical.
smsm42 12y ago
>>> What if case information was updated as per part of the legal process, aka person X is now innocent. You seem to be confusing two questions here: access to data and reliability of data. Let's take the example of opens source software, specifically linux kernel you mentioned. Anybody can create a mirror of linux kernel sources. Would that mirror be up-to-date? Who knows. How we solve this problem? We have a network of authoritative mirrors, we have signatures, we have places where new persons can discover which mirrors are recommended to be used. Does this mean if you want to open a new mirror you'd be banned from doing so until you prove you're worthy? No. But in order for your mirror to be useful by more than yourself, you'd have to convince others you are. Same can work with legal and scientific information. Let's even say federal government, with all its trillions of dollars, can not afford hosting a free information site. Removing merely legal hurdles, while keeping paid access, would allow volunteers with cooperation of trustworthy organizations - like universities, major NGOs, etc. - to raise private funds to keep free mirrors alive and up-to-date. This is a solved problem, the only thing preventing its deployment is the legal prohibition. Quality is not a problem, we know how to solve quality issue. Swartz tried to use technology to go around legal hurdles - unfortunately, in current environment this no longer works, law has caught with technology enough to resist attempts to work around it with technology. Now one can only hope it would soon advance enough to actually enable technology to help, not only disable it.

by nutate 12y ago

pmorici 12y ago

I've been following a legal case using pacer for the past year and if you something is added or updated on a case an email notice gets sent out to the people who have registered as interested parties with a link to the document and you get one free download. A pretty simple way to bridge pacer to a system that doesn't suck would be to register some kind of bot to get the email notices from each case and download and file each document as it becomes available.

hackuser 12y ago

> Was there ever an argument beyond 'information wants to be free' to this? I can think of four: 1) The information is vital to government and to justice, both personally (if you are party to or have a stake in the case) and as a public affairs issue; its availability should not be restricted in any way, and especially not restricted to those who can afford to pay. 2) In principle, access to the courts should not discriminate based on any factor, especially wealth. 3) The information is a product of taxpayer-funded activities and therefore should be public and free. 4) 8 cents/page for downloaded data is ridiculous; what if HN charged us 8 cents/page? Does anyone know what Swartz' actual arguments were?

josaka 12y ago
The strongest reason, to my mind, is that we have a common law system, so the public can't fully and accurately comply with the law without access to the court records upon which the common law rulings are based.
McDoku 12y ago
Fundamentally, I think you are both right... The complaint is that the current system of document storage is not good enough to balance private review and public disclosure. Restriction should not be withholding. It is like eating a pizza pie before it cools. Burning the roof your your mouth sucks... Quality of information is as important as availability. This is a job for a lever.
thinkcomp 12y ago
Yes. The argument is that the E-Government Act of 2002 makes the judiciary's policies regarding PACER illegal. See: http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=84 http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=84 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...

mrgriscom 12y ago

The argument is this information is free. Products of the federal government are in the public domain, so to restrict access to it so aggressively is unethical.

smsm42 12y ago

>>> What if case information was updated as per part of the legal process, aka person X is now innocent. You seem to be confusing two questions here: access to data and reliability of data. Let's take the example of opens source software, specifically linux kernel you mentioned. Anybody can create a mirror of linux kernel sources. Would that mirror be up-to-date? Who knows. How we solve this problem? We have a network of authoritative mirrors, we have signatures, we have places where new persons can discover which mirrors are recommended to be used. Does this mean if you want to open a new mirror you'd be banned from doing so until you prove you're worthy? No. But in order for your mirror to be useful by more than yourself, you'd have to convince others you are. Same can work with legal and scientific information. Let's even say federal government, with all its trillions of dollars, can not afford hosting a free information site. Removing merely legal hurdles, while keeping paid access, would allow volunteers with cooperation of trustworthy organizations - like universities, major NGOs, etc. - to raise private funds to keep free mirrors alive and up-to-date. This is a solved problem, the only thing preventing its deployment is the legal prohibition. Quality is not a problem, we know how to solve quality issue. Swartz tried to use technology to go around legal hurdles - unfortunately, in current environment this no longer works, law has caught with technology enough to resist attempts to work around it with technology. Now one can only hope it would soon advance enough to actually enable technology to help, not only disable it.