Haines Jr. The remainder of the revenue went for monitors, sound systems, and other technology for courtrooms, electronic notices for bankruptcy cases, online summonses for prospective jurors, and a system that notifies law enforcement agencies when certain offenders move into their areas. The breakdown matters in determining what Congress has authorized the judiciary to do with the fees.
From the inception of electronic public access, Congress has declined to set aside funds to pay for Pacer and instead directed the judiciary to fund the system from fees. But as the plaintiffs see it, the Congressional mandate changed with the passage of the E-Government Act. They contend that the act sought to limit the fees that the judiciary could charge for Pacer, with the goal of making the information broadly available to the public.
In support of their contentions, the plaintiffs cite statements by former senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who sponsored the E-Government Act.
The Appropriations Committee has not commented on the lawsuit. The plaintiffs counter that the lawsuit has nothing to do with billing errors, but rather that the fees themselves are too high. Though the lawsuit seeks to limit Pacer fees rather than repeal them entirely, advocates like Lissner say the paywall needs to come down. Toward that end, the Free Law Project has published plug-in software for Chrome and Firefox browsers known as RECAP Pacer spelled backwards , which archives files you purchase from Pacer to a publicly available database that has amassed about 2 million documents.
This is the kind of data that will make the judicial system more fair. Back then, it made some sense to charge for access, given that building PACER from the ground up was not cheap.
The U. All the while, costs for online storage and document retrieval have dropped by 99 percent. In three nonprofit groups filed a federal class action lawsuit over what they claim were impermissibly excessive fees leveled by the federal judiciary for PACER usage. The case is currently on appeal in the Federal Circuit. Fee Overview Federal law allows, but does not require, the judiciary to charge fees for access to electronic public records. Staff produced a paper considering how the new system would be funded.
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