Tell The Courts to Improve PACER

One way to promote broader public access to the public record is to use RECAP to share documents with others. A complimentary approach is to tell the U.S. Courts directly what should change. Recently, Stanford Law Librarian Erika Wayne launched a petition to "Improve PACER," which suggested several changes:

1. Provide document authentication As the raw materials of adjudication become digitized and disseminated online, we must have some means of knowing that they are genuine. This is a dilemma that RECAP faces in helping users to trust the documents they download.
2. Lower costs, improve interfaces Our ultimate goal is to remove PACER's paywall entirely and free the database up for third parties to build interfaces. But in the meantime, it would certainly benefit the public to gain less expensive access to the law through more useful interfaces. The petition recommends that the U.S. Courts reduce the transaction costs of access, and make that access more usable.
3. Free access from Federal Depository Libraries

Erika will deliver the petition to the Administrative Office of the Courts in the near future. If you support these goals, consider signing the petition.