PACER, the federal court records system, generates $150 million annually by charging the public to access court documents - even though bankruptcy courts already publish the same data for free via RSS feeds. Critics call it a paywall on public information that should be freely accessible.
This is a perfect example of government technology stuck in 1995. The data exists. It's public. It's already being published for free in one format. But if you want the "official" version, you pay 10 cents per page.
Let me put that in context: PACER stores and retrieves static PDF files. That's it. Since 1998, data storage and retrieval costs have dropped 99.9% according to advocates. Yet the system still charges as if disk space costs what it did during the Clinton administration.
The Open Courts Act would eliminate PACER's paywall and create free access to federal court records. It was approved by the House Judiciary Committee in September 2020. It went nowhere, because the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts lobbied against it with a claim that replacing PACER would cost $2 billion.
The Free Law Project called nonsense on that number. Their estimate: $10-20 million over 36 months for development, plus less than $5 million annually for maintenance. They stated: "We are confident that under no circumstance would building and implementing the new system cost $2 billion or even several hundred million dollars."
Who's benefiting from keeping it broken? The Administrative Office maintains PACER revenue, which reform advocates describe as a "slush fund." The judiciary distributed talking points claiming that eliminating fees might increase filing fees for litigants - a claim the Free Law Project disputes.
This is about more than just money. Public court records are supposed to be public. When you put them behind a paywall - even a small one - you're limiting access to justice. Journalists, researchers, and regular citizens who want to understand what's happening in their court system have to pay for the privilege.
Meanwhile, anyone with the technical knowledge to parse an RSS feed can get the same data for free from bankruptcy courts. The only difference is the format and the official imprimatur. That's what you're paying $150 million a year for - PDFs instead of RSS.
The technology to fix this exists. It's not complicated. The Free Law Project literally told the government: "The new system will be rolled out step by step and will be built around the existing one so as not to create any disruptions."
Why does this still exist? What would it take to fix it? And who's benefiting from keeping it broken? The answers are: inertia, political will, and the people collecting the fees.
