“To provide the public with open access to electronic federal court records.”

That is the plan for The Open PACER Act being pushed by OpenPACER.org.

Today there was a cross-posting on the Law Library Blog (not to be confused with the Law Librarian Blog), and Legal Research Plus. You can read the proposed bill and see how it asks for open access to the federal court records.

We’ve talked before on PACER and open access (which I took some criticizm.) I think that the idea of a free PACER system, especially one that better modernizes the platform, would be great. However, I do not want to see the Federal Court System chopped off at the knees by removing a source of funding for the Courts without offsetting those cuts. So, if the Courts lose PACER revenues, then Congress should make sure they balance that by offsetting the costs through increased funding. Currently, I do not see that in the Open PACER Act. Any chance for a friendly amendment??