For years, members of Congress and advocates of open government have been urging the federal court system to eliminate fees for its electronic records. In June, the federal judiciary took a look at the problem—and decided to hike the fees.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced that it was temporarily raising the search and download fees for its Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) database. Temporary fees tend to be like "temporary" emergency measures, but the judiciary says the extra revenue will cover the cost of completing a long-awaited modernization of the clunky and frustrating system, which it estimates will require $700 million to $800 million over six years. That project, which was spurred by two serious data breaches, is welcome news to the many lawyers, reporters, and researchers who rely on PACER to follow federal cases. But it ignores a central problem: The court system overcharged PACER users for years while letting its database deteriorate.
