[8874] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: JURIS - DOJ rejects TAP FOIA Request (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James Love)
Wed Dec 8 21:59:12 1993
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 21:50:31 -0500 (EST)
From: James Love <love@essential.org>
To: Eliot Lear <lear@yeager.corp.sgi.com>
Cc: Eliot Lear <lear@yeager.corp.sgi.com>, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9312081416.ZM607@yeager.corp.sgi.com>
On Wed, 8 Dec 1993, Eliot Lear wrote:
> If the data were stored in electronic form in the first place, this
> would be a non issue. As is it would seem to me that these companies
> provide a valuable service to the grovernment, for which they should
> be compensated.
Well, if the judicial decisions were treated like most government
data, this would be a non-issue. But they are treated very different,
and this is no accident. No one disputes the right of firms like West to
charge fees for the services it provides. The battle is really over who
controls and "owns" federal judicial opinions. Although I have mentioned
this often, it bears repeating, that one important barrier to public
access to this data is the West copyright of the page numbers on
published judicial opinions, which court rules require lawyers to use.
So, not only should the government maintain the data in electronic
formats, but it needs to adopt a non-proprietary method of citations, so
the data will truly be in the public domain.
>
> I don't understand what are you are trying to accomplish by attacking
> Westlaw when you should be attempting to get legislation through so
> that our government keeps its own databases, or contracts the work
> out such that the data remains owned by, and accessible to, the
> people. Indeed if you succeed in the former, but not in the latter,
> you won't even be able to pay for the data.
>
Our initial work on this was directed at the Department of Justice,
to get them to do just that. West was and is a vigorous opponent of all
efforts to straighten things out. They killed HR 4426 last year, which
would have put the page numbers in the public domain, and they killed a
proposal by the Administrative Office of the Courts to provide a central
public repository of judicial opinions, and a non-properitary citation
method. It also is important for you to know that for someone to "get
legislation" on these topics, means defeating the West lobbying effort,
which is legendary.
jamie
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
