[8866] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: JURIS - DOJ rejects TAP FOIA Request (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James Love)
Wed Dec 8 17:15:24 1993
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 17:16:20 -0500 (EST)
From: James Love <love@essential.org>
To: "J. Timothy Sprehe" <p00269@psilink.com>
Cc: com-priv <com-priv@psi.com>
In-Reply-To: <2964450191.3.p00269@psilink.com>
On Wed, December 8, 1993, "J. Timothy Sprehe" wrote to com-priv:
>Taxpayer Assets Project is still not addressing a fundamental
>question: Why should the Justice Department pay for TAP or
>anyone else to have a free (or heavily subsidized) lunch in
>computer assisted legal research (CALR)?
Tim's use of the term "free lunch" may be a useful
polemic, but it hardly describes the issues. The
federal government spends more than $35 million per
year on LEXIS and WESTLAW, and it is clearly in the
government's interest to do something about the highly
monopolistic market for legal information. If the
government puts these records in the public domain, as
it does many other databases, there will be more
competition, leading to lower priced and perhaps better
products from the private sector. The government will
benefit from this as much as anyone.
If the government provides online access to any government
information, it should put legal information at the top of
the list, in terms of what is "appropriate" for public
dissemination. After all, we are expected to obey the law
(and face sanctions if we don't), and the law also tells us
what are rights are a citizens.
>Nowhere is it written in law or policy that the mission of the
>Justice Department shall be to provide low cost CALR services to
>the public.
Maybe its time to rewrite these policies, in light of the
vast changes in information technologies over the past two
decades.
>Justice is the nation's lawyer, whose mission, according to the
>_U.S. Government Manual_, is to enforce the laws, safeguard
>consumers, protect citizens through law enforcement, and ensure
>healthy competition of business in our free enterprise system.
I don't know too many people who think that the market for
legal information, where West Publishing benefits from many
special benefits from the courts, and enjoys a monopoly over
the "page numbers" of published judicial opinions, is one
where "healthy competition" is present.
I also think that consumers and citizens benefit from lower
cost access to legal information. Not everyone wants to
rely upon lawyers every time we want to research a legal
question.
>Love wants Justice also to deliver low cost computerized legal
>information services to the public, but the Congress has never
>seen fit to agree with him.
Well, Congress has been responsive to other issues we have
raised (GPO Access legislation, and public access to EDGAR),
and its a bit early to tell what Congress will do on this
issue.
On the issue of JURIS, WEST didn't pull out from JURIS until
after the DOJ appropriation passed congress, so there was never
really an opportunity to address the issue.
>Am I the only taxpayer who thinks that federal agencies should
>stick to carrying out the functions for which they were created?
>that Justice has no business providing CALR services to the
>public? and that the demise of JURIS is a good thing for the
>taxpayer?
Probably not. I'm sure that there are people who agree with
you. I just haven't met too many.
jamie
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James Love, Taxpayer Assets Project; internet: love@essential.org
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036; v. 202/387-8030; f. 202/234-5176
12 Church Road, Ardmore, PA 19003; v. 215/658-0880; f. 215/649-4066
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