A Sad Irony: The Federal Judiciary's PACER Pricing Is Illegal

Re:A Sad Irony: The Federal Judiciary's PACER Pricing Is Ill... by rsingel on Monday January 14, 2013 @03:37AM (#5053831)

This is such a load of self-serving bureaucratic nonsense. Pacer is an awful site that rips off the American people. Even if it is a cash cow, there's NO justification from keeping copyright free documents that are essential to democracy behind a paywall.

Increase the fees that Lexis-Nexis pays. Or charge more to submit documents. There's lots of solutions that could work to create a site that's usable and free to the American people.

This blame Congress crap has gone on long enough. When will the U.S. court system take its responsibility to the American people seriously? The answer: when people like you stop parroting its rationale.

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Re:A Sad Irony: The Federal Judiciary's PACER Pricing Is Ill... by tptacek on Monday January 14, 2013 @11:34AM (#5055285)

Does 'rprasad work for the court system? Does he have some financial stake in it? If not, how is this "self-serving"? If it's just the idea that you find "self-serving", why did you target it at him specifically with "people like you"? What incentive does he have to "parrot" anything from the courts?

The US Courts are underfunded and have crippling case loads. Beyond that, is it even clear that any court has the authority to "increase the fees that Lexis-Nexis pays"? Or to charge more to submit documents?

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Re:A Sad Irony: The Federal Judiciary's PACER Pricing Is Ill... by rsingel on Monday January 14, 2013 @12:20PM (#5055506)

Lexis-Nexis pays bulk rates to Pacer via contract. Attorneys pay to file documents. Those are set by the U.S. court system, not Congress.

He's making the same argument the U.S. court system has made, sub-rosa, for years, as it's raised fees for accessing court documents. It used to be 8 cents a page. Jumped to 10 cents earlier this year.

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