Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., has asked the policy body of the federal judiciary why it continues to charge the public and lawyers for access to electronically filed documents and whether enough is being done to protect the personal data collected by courts.
The senator, who is head of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, expressed concern in a Feb. 27 letter that the federal judiciary had a $150 million surplus in its technology fund as of fiscal year 2006 yet continues to charge the public and lawyers $.08 per page for access to documents.
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The Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system provides nationwide access to most records in district courts, including briefs, motions and judicial rulings. The courts charge a fee to the public for time online and 8 cents per page for documents downloaded from the system. By 2004, more than 15 million cases were on the electronic filing system and 100,000 lawyers had filed documents over the Internet to the courts. Many of the records included Social Security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers and women's maiden names, which could be used for identity theft. That material was to be stripped out.
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